.
Paper Bark tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia), Australian native, Sao Paulo, Brazil: photo by mauroguarandi, 29 November 2009
Some Relique of a Saint doth weare:
Who for some sweet-hearts sake, did prove
The fire, and martyrdome of love.
Here is the Legend of those Saints
That di'd for love; and their complaints:
Their wounded hearts; and names we find
Encarv'd upon the Leaves and Rind.
Give way, give way to me, who come
Scorch't with the selfe-same martyrdome:
And have deserv'd as much (Love knowes)
As to be canoniz'd 'mongst those,
Whose deeds, and deaths here written are
Within your Greenie-Kalendar:
By all those Virgins Fillets hung
Upon your Boughs, and Requiems sung
For Saints and Soules departed hence,
(Here honour'd still with Frankincense)
By all those teares that have been shed,
As a Drink-offering, to the dead:
By all those True-love-knots, that be
With Motto's carv'd on every tree,
By sweet S. Phillis; pity me:
By deare S.Iphis; and the rest,
Of all those other Saints now blest;
Me, me, forsaken, here admit
Among your Mirtles to be writ:
That my poore name may have the glory
To live remembred in your story.
Robert Herrick (1591-1674): To Groves, from Hesperides, 1648
Paper Bark Birch: photo by Aubrey Guymn, 16 December 2005
Paperbark Maple, Mendocino Botanical Gardens: photo by jidarius, 13 May 2010
Paperbark Tree: photo by Joel Bramley, 5 April 2013
Paper Bark Tree, Point Loma, California: photo by Lee Edwin Coursey, 13 April 2008
Paperbark wetland, Mungo Brush, Hawks Nest, New South Wales: photo by my_elbow, 22 July 2009
Paperbarks (Melaleuca quinguenervia) in wetland, Broadwater National Park, New South Wales: photo by dustaway, 19 July 2012
Paperbark Maple (Acer griseum), Brookside Gardens, Maryland: photo by John Winder, 18 November 2012