Unlike all of the Johnny-come-lately spring garden and yard flowers, the woodland varieties take their sweet time. Forsythia, tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and others may herald spring in our modern era, but they were not the original firsts. These were planted by human hands to give us a much-needed early boost of color and scent. Long before these homestead blossoms were transplanted to our shores, there was the original first flower, the mayflower.

The connection between this flower and the European settlers of our country runs deeper than just their ship’s name. After their first long, trying winter, native mayflowers made the settlers’ desperate and difficult first spring season better. I’d even call this flower FFOTUS (First Flower of the United States) due to its place in early American history.

That so little a plant has encouraged so much affection is indeed indicative of the early spring predicament the colonists faced. There simply wasn’t much happening in terms of blooming until the mayflower (and also give credit to the shadbush) burst into life. Grateful pilgrims gave the local mayflower its name.

Also called trailing arbutus, mountain pink, winter pink, ground laurel and gravel plant, mayflower’s appeal extends beyond its early appearance. These names also give a clue to its humble, low-lying nature. Mats of pink and white flowers nestled among its leathery evergreen leaves provide a carpet of subtle color and texture on the woodland floor beneath leafless trees. This is surely an irresistible invitation to painters and photographers, and now, social media mavens.

As well as poets. American writer Rose T. Cooke was one admirer, calling the mayflower: Darlings of the forest! Blossoming alone, When Earth’s grief is sorest, For her jewels gone, Ere the last snow-drift melts your tender buds have blown.

Not to be left out, Elaine Goodale, who seemed to have a verse for each flower that caught her fancy, called the mayflower a “pure and perfect...rosy-tinted wreath.”

But perhaps it was Sarah Helen Whitman who takes the cake for her floral affection when she writes: The shy little Mayflower weaves her nest, But the south wind sighs o’er the fragrant loam, And betrays the path to her woodland home.

Nor are the men left out of the ground laurel lovefest. It was John Greenleaf Whittier (who apparently didn’t wander lonely as a cloud, as Wordsworth did) that was the wordiest in his appreciation of this floral miracle. In his poems of nature, he “leaves” no characteristic unappreciated: I wandered lonely where the pine-trees made, Against the bitter, East their barricade, And, guided by its sweet, Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, The trailing spring flower tinted like a shell, Amid dry leaves and mosses at my feet. . . . Which yet find room, Through care and cumber, coldness and decay, To lend a sweetness to the ungenial day, And make the sad earth happier for their bloom.

After all the rain we’ve had this year, I believe that I was just as excited as the pilgrims to see mayflower last weekend at Sepiessa Point Reservation. While its scientific description may not be as inspirational as the poets’ (its official name, Epigaea repens, suggest a form ‘creeping upon the earth’), it’s at least accurate. Yet at Sepiessa, I wasn’t looking at it as a scientist, but more as a pilgrim. And while it is not the tallest or the showiest harbinger of spring in field, forest or garden, it’s worth remembering that those who have appreciated the mayflower on this Island have been around far longer than those who arrived on one!

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature.