May is my favorite month. I had to think about this for a while, and it was a close contest with April. But May seems to me a bit milder, and without as many storms (I could be wrong on this last part.)

Classes are over, we’ve been having graduations around here. The yellow jessamine and henbit are long finished, and the magnolias are now blooming. There's a sort of sweet fragrance in the air on these quiet mornings and delightful evenings, with plenty of birds singing, and there's a nest in every bush.

Plus, there is a good mix of late spring and early summer flowers to study. Once we roll into June, it's starting to warm up pretty seriously, and a large part of the landscape will be entering its "high green" phase, that is, not so many flowers to see, mostly foliage.

May boasts some of the prettiest wildflowers there are, and some of the most fragrant. Lily of the valley, Convallaria majalis, this week's Mystery Plant is a show-stopper in both departments.

It is an herb, rising from a buried rhizome. Its aerial stem produces one or two (usually two) slender, pointed, dark green leaves, sheathing at the base. The leaf blade is prominently veiny.

Flowers appear regularly at the beginning of May. A raceme of flowers is characteristic, each flower hanging from a slender stalk, and mostly on one side of the raceme. The fully developed corolla of the flower is bowl-shaped, with six fused, snow-white petals. Six tiny stamens and a single pistil may be found within.

The fruits produced are small, reddish berries. The flowers are remarkably fragrant, and just one or two stalks of blossoms in a vase can fill a room with the delicate, spicy sweetness. Although it might be hard to describe the fragrance, it is not likely to be forgotten once sniffed, and thus figures into plenty of childhood memories.

This plant is a member closely related to lilies, and it is a cousin, as cousins go, to our native Solomon's-seal, and to your garden Cast-iron plant, and monkey-grass.

It’s a European species which tends to form dense clumps, and has been widely grown in America, and is now escaped over large parts of the eastern United States, mostly toward New England. A similar species is indeed native to the southern Appalachians, and it is also fragrant. 

This photo was shared with me by a friend of mine who lives near Paris. In France, the plant is called "muguet," and is now traditionally sold on street corners as a fragrant good-luck token for friends to exchange in May. If it were up to me, I would pronounce this word “moo-gay,” at least that’s what I remember from 8th-grade French class.

There is also an old-time perfume inspired by the flowers, “Muguet de Bois” which you may have heard of.  

And for you and your darling buds, I hope that the rest of May will be full of pleasant days, free from rough winds.

John Nelson is the retired curator of the A. C. Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina. As a public service, the Herbarium offers free plant identifications. For more information, visit www.herbarium.org or email johnbnelson@sc.rr.com.

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