Not every town can boast a plant of its own. Cieszyn not only has such a plant but also has it named after the town. This plant is cieszynianka wiosenna, with its Latin botanical name – Hacquetia epipactis.
      Cieszynianka wiosenna is one of the earliest flowers that bloom and this happens before the leaves appear on the trees or most of the plants in the undergrowth develop. As early as the beginning of March green and yellow inflorescence appears on a long (20 cm.) leafless stem. (Though there have been, in the past, instances of cieszynianka flowering even in the second half of February!) It is inflorescence, and not a flower, because cieszynianka belongs to a group of plants that are umbellate (the Umbelliferae) and it forms a typical umbel.
      What are frequently taken to be corolla petals is, in fact, a false perianth that is formed of green stipules, i.e. transformed leaves (usually 5-7). The flowers themselves are very small and yellow, and they fill the centre of the umbel. The leaves appear later.
      They are palmate, on a long stem. Cieszynianka ceases blossoming quite soon and it is already May or June when it produces fruit. In the summer one can merely see clusters of leaves that are sometimes difficult to spot in the array of other plants growing in the undergrowth. Cieszynianka can be found mainly in forests that grow on dry ground, in fertile lime soil. Two nature reserves, i.e. “Lasek Miejski nad Puńcówką” (The Municipal Woodland on the Puńcówka) and “Lasek Miejski nad Olzą” (The Municipal Woodland on the Olza”) were created to protect cieszynianka wiosenna. Besides that, cieszynianka also grows in The “Kopce” nature reserve and a few other small spinneys. Cieszynianka is planted enthusiastically in private gardens. It is one of the favourite garden plants among “Cieszynites”.
      Gustaw Morcinek, a writer fascinated by the beauty of Ziemia Cieszyńska (the Cieszyn region), told a beautiful legend about the origin of cieszynianka. According to the legend he paraphrased, cieszynianka came to us from somewhere in the Alps and its seeds were probably brought by an Austrian soldier of General Devaga’s army, who besieged Cieszyn castle during the Thirty Years’ War. And in the castle there were Swedish soldiers and this is how a romantic legend, connecting the origin of cieszynianka with Sweden, came into being. According to this legend, a Swedish ‘rajtar’ (cavalryman), badly wounded, was dying slowly in one of the Silesian farm cottages near Cieszyn. The farmer’s daughter fell in love with the well-favoured cavalryman and when her beloved died, she took from around his neck a little bag that contained Swedish soil and poured its contents over the dead man’s grave. Together with the soil there were the seeds of the flower. In the spring little flowers, pale yellow, grew on the grave, just after the snowdrops. They had no name. Therefore they were nicknamed cieszyniankas, since they appeared in the vicinity of Cieszyn. With time they multiplied within the Cieszyn-Skoczów-Ustroń triangle. Another version of the legend mentions two noblemen who promised each other that if one of them died, the other would bury him and pour a bag of native soil over his grave. When the promise was kept, it turned out that the soil contained the seeds of an unknown plant, i.e., cieszynianka.
      The legend about the origin of cieszynianka is extremely vivid and attractive but, as often happens with legends, this too has no confirmation in scientific research.
      One can come across cieszynianka wiosenna in its natural habitat only in Europe, in two regions that are far apart and isolated from each other. In the south cieszynianka grows in the eastern edges of the Alps, in Styria and Carinthia in Austria, in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia. The northern locality is in Moravia, the western edge of the Western Carpathians and the eastern part of Slovakia. It is in those two regions that cieszynianka survived the last Pleistocene Ice Age. After the continental glacier retreated, already in the Holocene Age, cieszynianka started its “journey” and populated new grounds: it entered the area of Poland through the Moravian Gate. Botanists sometimes call cieszynianka “a wandering relict”. Today cieszynianka grows relatively numerously mainly in the vicinities of Cieszyn and in Cieszyn Silesia. Apart from this, a few single and isolated localities were found in the Wielickie Plateau (among others, in the vicinity of Mogilany, near Kraków), Beskid Śląski (on Czantoria hill in Ustroń, and in Jaworzynka), Beskid Żywiecki (Rycerka, near Żywiec), in the southern part of Śląsk Opolski (near Racibórz, Rozumnice and Głogówek) and near Zawiercie (Krakowsko-Częstochowska Uplands) and Krasnystaw (Lubelska Uplands). It is worth noting here that cieszynianka does not grow in Sweden at all. Where, then, did the legend come from? It is also certain that its seeds can’t have been brought by any Austrian soldier because the plant had settled in our country long before (thousands of years before) – as the legend claims - the Thiry Years’ War. Its Latin name – Hacquetia epipactis – was given to honour Balthazar Hacquet, a French physician and naturalist who, in the years 1787 – 1810, was a lecturer at the University of Lwów and then in Kraków. He was the first man to travel the whole of the Carpathians from east to west, and later he announced the results of his research in a 4-volume work, which was the first rich and comprehensive source of information about the Carpathians. In 1790 Necker classified cieszynianka as a separate species and he granted it the Latin name that is still used today. Up to the beginning of the XIXth century cieszynianka was called Dondia epipactis or Dondisia epipactis, to honour Giacomo de Dondi.
      In 1924 Kazimierz Simm, a professor at Cieszyn Wyższa Szkola Rolnicza (Agricultural School of Higher Education), proposed that the name cieszynianka, which was commonly used by the inhabitants of Cieszyn, should become the official Polish botanical name. In this way cieszynianka’s “Godfather” wanted to emphasize the fact that it is in the Cieszyn neighbourhood that cieszynianka is most numerous in Poland. The name must have been considered appropriate and pleasing to the ear because in the same year it was introduced in the first edition of the Polish manual designating plants - “The Polish plants”. Before then botanists used the polonized Latin generic name “Haketia”. The specific way in which the seeds of the plant were said to have come to the Cieszyn region (in a little bag of native soil, worn around a soldier’s neck) was probably the reason why cieszynianka became a symbol of love for the native land. The plant is deeply “rooted” in the culture of the Cieszyn region and the minds of its inhabitants.
      The flower (or, to be more precise, inflorescence) of cieszynianka wiosenna, its sketch or a picture, is a commonly used symbol that appears on many publications that deal with Cieszyn Silesia. It is a logo for different Associations, Publishers and initiatives. In addition to that, stylised reproductions of cieszynianka (in gold or silver) have been awarded by Local Governments of Towns and Parishes of the Cieszyn Region to the most meritorious locals for the past few years.