As I walked down a side path at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, on a bright, sunny day in June, two quite distinct sights converged just in front of me. One was a middle-aged foursome of fellow visitors, all clad in the near-mandatory style of the vacationing 1980s American: immaculate pastel sports clothes and bulbous white sneakers. The other sight was a spectacular tree, one whose branches, instead of ascending toward the heavens, droop mournfully down to the ground—what garden people call a weeping form. Suddenly a member of the foursome broke away from her companions, ducked between the sagging branches, and disappeared completely from view, rather like a chipmunk bolting into the shrubbery.

I knew quite well what the vanishing lady was doing. I had been doing much the same thing for hour upon hour at Longwood Gardens. She was looking for the tree’s identifying label, doubtless confident that one would be found attached to the tree trunk, for though Longwood calls itself a pleasure garden, it supplies labels for its eleven thousand varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowers with more meticulous care than many a world-famous botanical garden. This is a great blessing to name freaks, meaning people like myself who are not quite happy with even the loveliest tree, shrub, or flower until we have been formally introduced.

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