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I’ve come up with a rather romantic imaginary Southern scene.
Picture this: it’s an early evening in late spring, one of those days that started off cool, but heated up quickly by midday, and suggesting things to come. We’re looking out over an expansive valley of one of our rocky rivers, and what lies before us is an extensive boulder-field, or shoal.
Granite rocks, some the size of a school bus, are strewn randomly across the entire river’s shallows, with a complicated system of whirlpools and rapids. Despite the lingering afternoon heat, distinctive thrills of chilly air rise up from the rapids.
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Doing a bit of research, I’ve found out that this couplet from Burns’ poem translates as “We two have run around the hills, and pulled the daisies fine.” This week’s Mystery Plant is about a kind of daisy. (Sort of.)
“Gowan” is an old Scottish word that refers to a daisy, or at least a daisy-like plant. One of the oldest known common names for it is “Ling gowan,” which suggests a daisy-like plant growing on hillside slopes of heath, or heather.
Burns brings to mind a beautiful image: lovers, perhaps (or maybe just friends), picking daisies during a picnic outing, in the spring. Well, it’s spring now, and although we don’t have heaths or heathers as they do in Scotland, we do have this “gowan,” Ling gowan,