Trailing Arbutus is credited with making a very dramatic impression on early settlers in North America, especially the famous Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, MA in 1620. Used to the exhausted fields and largely cut woodland areas of Europe, they were stunned by North America's primeval forests, which created heavily wooded habitat, right down to the Atlantic beaches. In spring, these magnificent old growth forests burst into bloom with our now-famous host of Spring Woodland Wildflowers, unknown in Europe. The queen of all the spring woodland flowers, at least to the Pilgrims, was this lovely ground-running vine with its delicate shell-pink flowers. For this reason, the common name of Mayflower was given the newly "discovered" plant, and it will always hold an important place in American history.