Queens Botanical Garden

It’s the first day of summer for my daughter so her mother wanted to take her to the botanical gardens.

A worker was planting rue and that reminded me of Hamlet:

In act 4, scene 5 of Hamlet, Ophelia gives away a number of flowers with medicinal properties, keeping only rue for herself:

OPHELIA: There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

LAERTES: A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA: There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it “herb of grace” o’ Sundays. You may wear your rue with a difference. (170-177)

Rue is a plant with yellow flowers that “emit a powerful, disagreeable odor and have an exceedingly bitter, acrid and nauseous taste” (“rue” Botanical.com). (Source)

The gardener said rue wards off evil.

I sat and looked here while my daughter and her mother walked around. I read a little of Thoreau’s journal:

“Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making room for another. The oak dies down to the ground, leaving within its rind a rich virgin mould, which will impart a vigorous life to an infant forest. The pine leaves a sandy and sterile soil, the harder woods a strong and fruitful mould.”