THE MYSTERY OF FLOWERS. Curious Studies in the World of Vegetable Beauty.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 78, 29 November 1884, Page 5

THE MYSTERY OF FLOWERS. Curious Studies in the World of Vegetable Beauty.

Tiik name of the peony is derived from L'eon, a celebrated Greek phy&ician, who taught the Greeks that this pretty flower was of divine oiigin, emanating from the light of the moon, and a valuable cure, therefore, for epilepsy, which was supposed to be a moonstruck malady The peony was thought to have power over the winds, to protect the harvest from storms, and to avert tempests. The lloral kingdom furnishes plants which flower unfailingly on certain daj's, and superstition has seized on this fact and associated some with the qualities of great persons w ho happened to be born on the day they plant flowers. The cyclamen opens in Southern Europe on Sfc Romoald's day, and is dedicated to this romantic recluse, who abandoned a noble ea eer for a monastery, because he witnessed his father kill a kinsman in a duel. The ro.se bay willow herb the French called St Anthony's fires, because of its brilliant red hue, and it having appeared first in the cloventh century, when the plague of erysipelas was raging, and accoiding to it the poMcr of intercession w ith disca&e which its patron, St Anthony, was believed to possess. The early Christians, attracted to some flou crs by their peculiar beauty, gathered a number of the&c into a herbarium and dedicated them to the Virgin Mary. Among these are the snowdrop, the lily of the valley, \\ hitc daffodil, white rose, white hyacinth, and white clematis, lady's finger, lady'b clipper, lady's glove, marigold, lady's mantle, etc., to all of which superstition attaches qualities of purity and goodness, and conferred these upon the wearer of any of the&c symbolical flowers. The common hollyhock is a corruption of holy oak, and is reverenced in parts of rural England, where tradition percolates through centuries, because the Crusaders brought it j from the Holy Land. The modest, shrinking bluebell is, despite these most opposite qualities, a plant of war in the superstitious belief of the same people. It is dedicated to St. George, their patron saint. By the French the white variety of this plant is?, in curious contrast, associated with the peaceful character of a nun, and is called la relb/iu^c dcs champ*. The familiar line, "Balm of Gilead," is the name of a plant whose nearest summer relation is our acacia. In the earliest ages it was celebrated by Pliny, Strabo, Tacitus, and Justin, not alone for its medicinal qualities, buttholoftyspiritanddignityitsmeaningwas supposed to increase. The Queen of Sheba brought it to King Soloman, and Cleopatra planted one species of it near Matara, which ripened intoashrub celebrated by travellers for ages afterwards. The Eastern Christians believed the plant would grow only under the care of a Christian gardener, and that were the bark incised by any instrument of metal the flow of balsam would be corrupt. Under their fostering care the plant grew as large as a fir tree, and such was the respect that it exerted that when Christianity spread into European courts the balm of Gilead came to be mingled in the oil used at the coronation of monarchs. The Coptic Christians had a tradition that when the Holy Family were leaving Egypt to return to Judea, they stopped to rest at Matara, and went from house to house begging a cup of water, and were everywhere refused. Faint with thirst and sorrow, the Virgin Mary sat down under a Balm of Gilead tree, and immediately a fountain sprang up beside her, and the tree rustled its leaves and fanned a gentle breeze as the Mother and Child drank of the water and rested.