One of my favorite flowers is oxalis. I never knew the flower existed until I read about it in ST. ELMO by Augusta Jane Evans. In the following paragraph, “Edna Earl” sees the flower and associates it with “St. Elmo Murray,” the man she is trying to resist.
Edna bent over her flowers, and recognizing many favorites that recalled the hothouse at Le Bocage, her eyes filled with tears, and she hastily put her lips to the snowy cups of an oxalis. How often she had seen just such fragile petals nestling in the buttonhole of Mr. Murray’s coat. (Page 290, ST. ELMO).
I was thinking about that and other passages in ST. ELMO when i wrote the following scene between “Effie Beller” and “Gideon Baldwin” on page 69 and 70 of THE PRINCE IN THE TOWER.
“When are you fixing to come home?”
“In a few days.”
“Oh.” Effie tried to hide her disappointment. “I hope you’ll have plenty of sunshine at the beach.”
“And delay my return?”
They were standing in the sun room, and he was preparing to leave through the back door. Impulsively she snatched a spray of oxalis from a ceramic pot and held it up to his lapel.
“What are you doing?”
“I’d like to put some flowers in your buttonhole if you don’t mind.”
“Why?”
“Because you remind me of someone.”
“Who?”
“St. Elmo.”
“I’m not a saint.”
“Neither was he.” With trembling fingers, she slipped the posy into his buttonhole and started to walk away, but he seized her arm and turned her around.
I brought oxalis into the story again when “Effie’s” antipathy for “Rev. Baldwin” was near its peak:
He crossed the room to his mother’s dresser and returned with a handful of tissues.
As she dried her eyes, she heard him say in a voice unaccountably sweet, “I often forget how sensitive you are. You remind me of that dainty flower you gave me when I was leaving for Conference. What was it?”
“Oxalis.”
“So incredibly small, so easily crushed. Sometimes you wilt before my eyes and make me wonder what I have said or done to cause it.” He paused for a moment, waiting for her to compose herself, and added, “Effie Belle. Despite your belief to the contrary, I am not entirely the ogre conceived in your imagination, and If I can help you in any way–“
Every flower has a special meaning–or so I thought. I based this belief on a book called “The Poetry of Flowers.” i was sure I could look up oxalis and find a romantic meaning. However, the flower is not even mentioned in the book.
Some refer to oxalis simply as “clover” or “a creeping weed,” hardly a romantic description of my hallowed plant. Finally, I learned that oxalis is a member of the wood sorrel family. Wood Sorrel means “Joy” and “maternal tenderness,” and that is an accurate description of the role that oxalis plays in THE PRINCE IN THE TOWER..
Often referred to as “shamrock,” oxalis is easy to find this time of year. I found two different types of oxalis in a St. Patrick’s Day display at the grocery store. My favorite is “snowy” oxalis, but you can also find oxalis with purple leaves and lavender flowers or with green leaves and pink flowers.
THE PRINCE IN THE TOWER 