A verdancy of fresh fern fronds, wild geraniums, damp moss, green patchouli, vetiver root, early meadowgrass, and tumbling wetland streams.
A fern beside the way we went
She plucked, and, smiling, held it up,
While from her hand the wild, sweet scent
I drank as from a cup.
O potent witchery of smell!
The dust-dry leaves to life return,
And she who plucked them owns the spell
And lifts her ghostly fern.
-- John Greenleaf Whittier
Art: At the Waterfall by Henri Rousseau, 1910