Happy May Day! Today, the tradition in France is to give a sprig of Lily of the Valley to loved ones.   Originally from Japan, Lily of the Valley has long been considered lucky. It's sweet scent, belies it's high toxicity.   Other names for Lily of the Valley include May Bells, Our Lady's Tears, and Mary's Tears. The French name, muguet, is a diminutive form mugue or muguete and means “musk”.       Brevities   #OTD Today we celebrate the May 1st birthday of French BotanistAimee Antoinette Camus ("kah-MEW") in 1879.   In terms of ranking among female scientists, Camus is second in authoring land plants - with a total of 677 species. It's especially impressive given that only 3% of land plants are authored by women!   Best known for her study of orchids, Camus was the daughter of botanist and pharmacist Edmond Gustave Camus.   Together, Camus and her father collected more than 50,000 specimens for their family herbarium.   Her father sparked her passion for orchids and plant anatomy. More than that, he offered connections with some of the best French botanists of her day.   She gave the name of Neohouzeaua ("Neo-who-zoh-ah")to a genus of seven tropical bamboo, in honor of the lifelong work that Jean Houzeau de Lehaie ("Who-zoh-do-lou-ay")had devoted to the understanding of the botany and propagation of bamboo in Europe and Africa. Camus also authored horticulture books to appeal to the masses and she was always forecasting the latest in botany. When plants arrived from the French colonies, she would attempt to calculate the economic value of the plants. She spent her entire professional career at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. To this day, Camus's monumental work remains the most comprehensive classification of the oak genus Quercus ("Qirkus"). Her book is simply called, The Oaks, and Camus wrote this in her introduction, “The oak forest that enabled our ancestors to fight against hunger, cold, darkness, that gave them shelter, weapons, construction materials, furniture, boats, means of transport, is today in part free from these obligations. Coal, iron, cement, concrete are all replacing wood; but the Oak with its qualities remains of great usefulness to man and its protection is of the utmost importance. Further, while industrial expansion has brought ugliness to so many places, is not the forest one of the last havens of beauty?”   #OTD On this day in 1893, The Chicago World's Fair opened and drew in more than 27 million visitors.    Frederick Law Olmsted, of Central Park fame, designed the Exposition’s landscape.   The vision for Chicago was to have it live up to its founding motto, “urbs in horto,” or “City in a Garden”.   Flower Painter Augusta Dohlmann's  work was displayed at the Fair.   The Fair itself was a display of flora the likes of which the world had never seen.   Designed by the inventor of the skyscraper, William LeBaron Jenney, the Horticultural building covered more than 4 acres of the fair grounds.   There were eight different greenhouses at the Fair to help coordinate the elaborate schedule of flowers to be displayed over the Fair's six-month run.   The various state buildings brought their own native flowers and fruits.   The Midwest exhibit had a building made from corn-on-the-cob and Missouri created a St. Louis Bridge made entirely out of sugar cane. In the Agricultural Building, the Japanese exhibit included a garden. Denise Otis wrote in her book Grounds for Pleasure: “After Americans saw the Japanese garden ..., they became prized features on the estates of those who collected gardens in different styles.”   #OTD On this day in 1943, botanist Arthur Galston realizes that excessive use of a plant growth hormone causes catastrophic defoliation.   Galston recognized that the effects of using the hormone could be harmful to humans and the environment. Nonetheless, the Army moved forward, using Galston's work to develop herbicides during war to destroy enemy crops and it would be ship