“St. John’s Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in his chamber kept,From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”The old English names of Cyclamen were Sow-bread and Swine-bread.——It was considered under the dominion of Mars.CYPRESS.—Ovid tells us of the “taper Cypress,” that it is sacred to Apollo, and was once a fair youth, Cyparissus by name, who was a great favourite of the god. Cyparissus became much attached to a “mighty stag,” which grazed on the fertile fields of Cæa and was held sacred to Carthæan nymphs. His constant companion, this gentle stag was one day unwittingly pierced to the heart by a dart thrown by the luckless youth. Overcome with remorse, Cyparissus would fain have killed himself but for the intervention of Apollo, who bade him not mourn more than the loss of the animal required. Unable, however, to conquer his grief, Cyparissus at length prayed the superior powers, that as an expiation, he should be doomed to mourn to all succeeding time: the gods therefore turned him into a Cypress-tree. Ovid thus relates the tale:—“And now of blood exhausted he appears,Drained by a torrent of continual tears;The fleshy colour in his body fades,And a green tincture all his limbs invades;From his fair head, where curling locks late hung,A horrid bush with bristled branches sprung,Which, stiff’ning by degrees, its stem extends,Till to the starry skies the spire ascends.Apollo sad looked on, and sighing cried,Then be for ever what thy prayer implied;Bemoaned by me, in others grief excite,And still preside at every funeral rite.”—Congreve.According to another account, Silvanus, god of the woods (who is sometimes represented holding a branch of Cypress in his hand), became enamoured of a handsome youth named Cyparissus, whowas changed into the tree bearing his name. Rapin gives the following version of the story:—“A lovely fawn there was—Sylvanus’ joy,Nor less the fav’rite of the sportive boy,Which on soft grass was in a secret shade,Beneath a tree’s thick branches cooly laid;A luckless dart rash Cyparissus threw,And undesignedly the darling slew.But soon he to his grief the error found,Lamenting, when too late, the fatal wound:Nor yet Sylvanus spared the guiltless child,But the mischance with bitter words reviled,This struck so deep in his relenting breast,With grief and shame, and indignation prest,That tired of life he melted down in tears,From whence th’ impregnate earth a Cypress rears;Ensigns of sorrow these at first were born,Now their fair race the rural scenes adorn.”In a legend current among the Greeks, the Cypress owes its origin to the daughters of Eteocles, King of Thebes. Carried away by the goddesses in a whirlwind, which kept revolving them in endless circles, they were at length precipitated into a pond, upon which Gæa took compassion on the young girls, and changed them into Cypress-trees.——Perhaps owing to its funereal and sorrowful character, the Cypress has been named as the tree which furnished the wood of the Saviour’s Cross.——An ancient legend referred to in the ‘Gospel of Nicodemus,’ Curzon’s ‘Monasteries of the Levant,’ and other works, carries the history of the Cross back as far as the time of Adam. In substance it is as follows:—Adam, one day, fell sick, and sent his son Seth to the Garden of Eden to ask the guardian angel for some drops of the oil of mercy, distilled from the Tree of Life. The angel replied that none could have that till five thousand years had passed, but gave him a slip of the tree, which was afterwards planted on Adam’s grave, and grew into a goodly tree with three branches. Another version states that the Angel in Paradise gave Seth three seeds, which he placed under Adam’s tongue before burial, from which they grew into the Cypress, the Cedar, and the Pine. These were subsequently carried away by Moses, who cut his rod from them, and King David transplanted them near a fountain at Jerusalem, where the three saplings combined and grew into one grand tree. Under its umbrageous shade he composed his Psalms and lamented his sins. His son Solomon afterwards cut it down for a pillar in his Temple, but no one was able to fix it there. Some say it was preserved in the Temple, while others aver that it formed a bridge across a marsh, which the Queen of Sheba refused to pass, being deterred by a vision of its future burden. It was afterwards buried in the Pool of Bethesda, thereby accounting for the healing properties possessed by its waters. At the Passion, it floated and was taken for the Cross, or, as some say, for the upright beam. HenryMaundrell speaks of a Greek convent, about half an hour’s distance from Jerusalem, where they showed him a hole in the ground under the high altar, where the stump of the tree stood. Sir John Maundevile also says that the spot where the tree grew at Jerusalem was pointed out to him; the wood, he states, formed a bridge over the brook Cedron.——Some versions of the legend of the wood of the Cross state it was made of Cypress, Cedar, Pine, and Box: one names Cypress for the body, Palm for the hands, Cedar for the support of the feet, and Olive for the superscription.——Another version states that the cross beam was of Cypress; the upright beam of “immortal Cedar;” the title of Olive; and the foot-rest of Palm: hence the line—“Ligna crucis Palma, Cedrus, Cupressus, Oliva.”In all countries, and from the earliest times, the Cypress has been deemed the emblem of woe. Gerarde tells us, that it had the reputation of being deadly, and that its shadow was unfortunate. Horace, Virgil, and Ovid all refer to it as a tree both gloomy and funereal. By the Greeks and Romans alike, the “sad” tree was consecrated to Pluto and Proserpine, as well as to the Fates and the Furies. The Greeks crowned with Cypress their tragic Muse Melpomene, and it became an accompaniment of Venus in the annual processions in which she was supposed to lament over Adonis.——The ancients planted the Cypress around graves, and in the event of a death, placed it either before the house or in the vestibule, so that no one about to perform a sacred rite might enter a place polluted with a dead body. The Cypress was probably selected for this purpose because of the belief that, when once cut down, it never springs up again.——But, in connection with its funereal associations, the Cypress has always been highly esteemed as an undying tree, ever verdant, flourishing (Cupressus sempervirens) and odorous, and a tree of which the wood, like the Cedar, is incorruptible. Theophrastus attributes great honour to the tree, and points out how the roofs of old temples became famous by reason of its wood, and that the timber of which the rafters were made was deemed everlasting, because it was unhurt by rotting, moth, worm, or corruption. Martial describes the Cypress as deathless. Gerarde identifies it with theThyaof Pliny and Homer: “He showeth that this is burned among the sweet smells which Circe was much delighted withall.... The verse is extant in the fifth booke of Odysses, where he mentioneth that Mercurie, by Jupiter’s commandment, went to Calypsus’ den, and that he did smell the burnt trees,ThyaandCedrus, a great way off.” Theocritus and Virgil both allude to the fragrance of the Cypress, and on account of the balsamic scent of its timber, chips of it were sometimes employed to flavour wine with. The Athenians buried their heroes in coffins of this wood, and the Egyptians made of it those apparently indestructible chests that contain the mummiesof a bygone age.——Pausanias tells us, that the Greeks guarded scrupulously the Cypresses which grew over the Tomb of Alcmæon, and that these trees attained such a height, that they cast their shadows on the neighbouring mountain. The same writer mentions several groves of Cypress which were looked upon as sacred by the Greeks; for instance, those which surrounded the Temples of Bellerophon and Æsculapius, one of the shrines of Venus, the Tomb of Lais, near Corinth, and a dense wood of Cypress, where were to be seen statues of Apollo, Mercury, and Rhea. Diodorus Siculus, Plato, and Solinus speak of groves of Cypress which were held sacred in Crete, near the ruins of the reputed dwelling of Rhea, and in the vicinity of the Cavern of Zeus. Solinus also remarks on the peculiarity of the Cretan Cypresses in sprouting afresh after being cut down.——P. della Valla, a great traveller of Evelyn’s time, tells of a wonderful Cypress, then extant, near the tomb of Cyrus, to which pilgrimages were made. This tree was hollowed within, and fitted for an oratory, and was noted for a gummy transudation which it yielded, reputed by the Turks to turn, every Friday, into drops of blood.——Plato desired to have the laws engraved on tablets of Cypress, because he thought the wood more durable even than brass: the antique idol of Vejovis (or Vedius), in Cypress-wood, at the Capitol, corroborates this notion. Semiramis selected the timber of the Cypress for his bridge across the Euphrates; the valves, or doors, of the Ephesian temple were of this material, as were also the original gates of St. Peter’s, Rome. It has been thought that theGopher, mentioned in Genesis (vi., 14), of which the Ark was built, was reallyKupros,Cupar, orCuper, the Cypress. Epiphanius relates that some relics of the Ark (circa campos Sennaar) lasted even to his days, and was judged to have been of Cypress. Certain it is that the Cretans employed it in ship-building, and that so frequent was the Cypress in those parts of Assyria where the Ark was supposed to have been built, that the vast armadas which Alexander the Great sent forth from Babylon were constructed of it. Of Cypress-wood were formed Cupid’s darts, Jove’s sceptre, and the club of Hercules used in recovering the cows stolen by the robber Cacus. Either of Fig- or Cypress-wood were fashioned the obscene statues of Priapus set up by the Romans in their gardens and orchards, which were presided over by this lascivious god, who exercised a peculiar faculty of detecting and punishing thieves. The thunderbolts of Indra possessed the like distinctive power. In Northern mythology, the club of Hercules and the thunderbolts of Indra are replaced by the mallet of Thor, which it is not difficult to recognise in the mallet of Cypress-wood that, in Germany, was formerly believed to impart the power of discovering thieves.——From its qualities, the Cypress acquired throughout the East a sacred character. This was more particularly the case in Persia. In the Zend-Avesta, it is accounted divine—consecrated to thepure light of Ormuzd, whose word was first carved on this noble tree. Parsi traditions tell of a Cypress planted by Zoroaster himself, which grew to wondrous dimensions, and beneath the branches of which he built himself a summer-house, forty yards high and forty yards broad. This tree is celebrated in the songs of Firdusi as having had its origin in Paradise. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Cypress, a tree of Paradise, rising in a pyramidal form, with its taper summit pointing to the skies, like the generating flame, should be planted at the gates of the most sacred fire-temples, and, bearing the law inscribed by Zoroaster, should stand in the forecourt of the royal palace and in the middle of pleasure gardens, as a reminiscence of the lost Paradise. This is the reason why sculptured images of the Cypress are found in the temples and palaces of Persepolis; for the Persian kings were servants of Ormuzd. Sacred Cypresses were also found in the very ancient temple of Armavir, in Atropatene, the home of Zoroaster and his light-worship. The Cypress, indeed, reverenced all over Persia, was transmitted as a sacred tree down from the ancient Magi to the Mussulmans of modern times.——From Asia, the Cypress passed to the island of Cyprus (which derived its name from the tree), and here the primitive inhabitants worshipped, under the Phœnician name Beroth, a goddess personified by the Cypress-tree.——According to Claudian, the Cypress was employed by the goddess Ceres as a torch, which she cast into the crater of Etna, in order to stay the eruption of the volcano, and to imprison there Vulcan himself.——An Italian tradition affirms that the Devil comes at midnight to carry off three Cypresses confided to the care of three brothers—a superstitious notion evidently derived from the fact that the tree was by the ancients consecrated to Pluto.——Like all the trees connected with the Phallica, the Cypress is at once a symbol of generation, of death, and of the immortal soul.——In Eastern legends, the Cypress often represents a young lover, and the Rose, his beloved. In a wedding song of the Isle of Crete, the bridegroom is compared to the Cypress, the bride to the scented Narcissus. In Miller’sChrestomathieis a popular Russian song, in which a young girl tells her master that she has dreamed of a Cypress and of a Sugar-tree. The master tells her that the Cypress typifies a husband, and the Sugar-tree a wife; and that the branches are the children, who will gather around them.——At Rome, according to Pliny, they used to plant a Cypress at the birth of a girl, and called it thedotemof the daughter.——The oldest tree on record is the Cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. An ancient chronicle at Milan proves it was a tree in Julius Cæsar’s time,B.C.42. It is 121 feet high, and 23 feet in circumference at one foot from the ground. Napoleon, when laying down the plan for his great road over the Simplon, diverged from a straight line to avoid injuring this tree.——To dream of a Cypress-tree denotes affliction and obstruction in business.Daffodil,Daffodilly, orDaffadowndilly.—SeeNarcissus.DAHLIA.—The Dahlia (Dahlia variabilis) is first mentioned in a History of Mexico, by Hernandez (1651): it was next noticed by Menonville, who was employed by the French Minister to steal the cochineal insect from the Spaniards in 1790. The Abbé Cavanilles first described the flower scientifically from a specimen which had bloomed in the Royal Garden of Madrid the previous year, and he named the plant after his friend Andrew Dahl, the Swedish botanist.——The Dahlia was introduced into England in 1789 by Lady Bute from Madrid, but this single plant speedily perished. Cavanilles sent specimens of the three varieties then known to the Jardin des Plantes in 1802, and the flower was very successfully cultivated in France, so that in 1814, on the return of peace, the improved varieties of the Dahlia created quite a sensation among English visitors to Paris. Meanwhile, Lady Holland had in July, 1804, sent Dahlia-seeds to England from Madrid, and ten years after we find her husband thus writing to her:—“The Dahlia you brought to our isleYour praises for ever shall speak;Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,And in colour as bright as your cheek.”It is singular that this favourite flower should have been twice introduced to England through the ladies of two of her most noted statesmen, and that the first introduction should mark the year when France became revolutionized, and the second that which saw Napoleon made Emperor of the French nation: it is from these incidents that the Dahlia in floral language has been selected as the symbol of “instability.”——In Germany and Russia, the flower is called Georgina, after a St. Petersburg professor.DAISY.—The legend connected with the Daisy, orBellis, runs that this favourite little flower owes its origin to one of the Belides, who were grand-daughters of Danaus, and belonged to the race of Nymphs, called Dryads, presiding over woodlands, pastures, and meadows: she is said to have encouraged the suit of the rural divinity, Ephigeus, but whilst dancing on the sward with him, chanced to attract the admiration of Vertumnus, the guardian deity of orchards, and to enable her to escape from his amorous embrace, she was transformed into the humble flower namedBellis. Thus Rapin says:—“When the bright ram, bedecked with stars and gold,Displays his fleece, the Daisy will unfoldTo nymphs a chaplet, and to beds a grace,Who once herself had borne a virgin’s face.”Chaucer, however, who appears to have been passionately fond of the Daisy, and never tired of singing its praises, tells us that the Queen Alceste was changed into the flower, and that she had as many virtues as there were florets in it.“Hast thou not a book in thy cheste,The great goodnesse of the Queene AlcesteThat turned was into a Daisie?She that for her husband chose to die,And eke to gone to hell rather than lie.And Hercules rescued her, parde,And brought her out of hell again to bliss?And I answered againe, and said ‘Yes,’Now I knowe her, and this is good Alceste,The Daisie, and mine own hertes rest?”Ossian gives another origin. Malvina, weeping beside the tomb of Fingal, for Oscar and his infant son, is comforted by the maids of Morven, who narrate how they have seen the innocent infant borne on a light mist, pouring upon the fields a fresh harvest of flowers, amongst which rises one with golden disc, encircled with rays of silver, tipped with a delicate tint of crimson. “Dry thy tears, O Malvina,” cried the maidens; “the flower of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills of Cromla.”——The ancient English name of the flower was Day’s Eye, in which way it was written by Ben Jonson; and Chaucer calls it the “ee of the daie.” Probably it received this designation from its habit of closing its petals at night and during rainy weather.——There is a popular superstition, that if you omit to put your foot on the first Daisy you see in Spring, Daisies will grow over you or someone dear to you ere the year be out; and in some English counties an old saying is current that Spring has not arrived until you can plant your foot upon twelve Daisies.——Alphonse Karr, speaking of the Paquerette, or Easter Daisy, says, “There is a plant that no insect, no animal attacks—that ornament of the field, with golden disc and rays of silver, spread in such profusion at our feet: nothing is so humble, nothing is so much respected.” (SeeMarguerite).——Daisy-roots worn about the person were formerly deemed to prove efficacious in the cure of certain maladies; and Bacon, in hisSylva Sylvarum, tells us “There is also a received tale, that boiling of Daisy-roots in milk (which it is certain are great driers) will make dogs little.”——An old writer (1696) says that they who wish to have pleasant dreams of the loved and absent should put Daisy-roots under their pillow.——It is considered lucky to dream of Daisies in Spring or Summer, but bad in the Autumn or Winter. Daisies are herbs of Venus, under Cancer.DAMES’ VIOLET.—The species of Rocket calledHesperis matronalis, the Night-smelling Rocket, is much cultivated for the evening fragrance of its flowers: hence the ladies of Germany keep it in pots in their apartments, from which circumstance the flower is said to have obtained the name of Dames’ Violet. It is also called Damask Violet, a name derived from the LatinViola Damascena, the Damascus Violet. In French this isViolette de Damas, which has probably been misunderstood asViolette des Dames, and has hence become, in English, Dames’ Violet. (SeeRocket.)DANDELION.—The Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) derives its name from the FrenchDent de lion, lion’s tooth. (Latin,Dens leonis). In nearly every European language the flower bears a similar name, given to it presumably either from the whiteness of its root, the auriferous hue of its flower, which recalls the golden teeth of the heraldic lion, or its jagged leaf, which was supposed to resemble a lion’s tooth. De Gubernatis connects the name with the Sun (Helios), and states that a lion was the animal-symbol of the Sun, and that all plants named after him are essentially plants of the Sun. Certainly the appearance of the Dandelion-flower is very suggestive of the ancient representations of the Sun.——In German Switzerland, the children form chains of the stalks of Dandelions, and holding the garland in their hands, they dance round and round in a circle.——The Dandelion is called the rustic oracle: its flowers always open about five a.m. and shut at eight p.m., serving the shepherd for a clock—“Leontodons unfoldOn the swart turf their ray-encircled gold,With Sol’s expanding beam the flowers unclose,And rising Hesper lights them to repose.”—Darwin.As the flower is the shepherd’s clock, so are the feathery seed-tufts his barometer, predicting calm or storm. These downy seed-balls, which children blow off to find out the hour of the day, serve for other oracular purposes. Are you separated from the object of your love?—carefully pluck one of the feathery heads, charge each of the little feathers composing it with a tender thought; turn towards the spot where the loved one dwells; blow, and the seed-ball will convey your message faithfully. Do you wish to know if that dear one is thinking of you, blow again; and if there be left upon the stalk a single aigrette, it is a proof you are not forgotten. Similarly the Dandelion is consulted as to whether the lover lives east, west, north, or south, and whether he is coming or not.“Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off,And at each, cry, yes—no—yes;I blow the down from the dry Hawkweed,Once, twice—hah! it flies amiss!”—Scott.Old herbalists had great faith in the Dandelion as a wonderful help to consumptive people. More recently, in the county of Donegal, an old woman skilled in simples has treated her patients for “heart fever,” or dyspepsia, as follows:—She measures the sufferer three times round the waist with a ribbon, to the outer edge of which is fastened a green thread. If the patient be mistaken in supposing himself affected with heart fever, this green thread will remain in its place, but should he really have the disorder, it is found that the green thread has left the edge of the ribbon and lies curled up in the centre. At the third measuring, the simpler prays for a blessing. She next hands the patient nine leaves of “heart fever grass,” or Dandelion, gathered by herself,directing him to cut three leaves on three successive mornings.——Hurdis, in his poem of ‘The Village Curate,’ fantastically compares the sparkling undergraduate and the staid divine to the Dandelion in the two stages of its existence:—“Dandelion this,A college youth, that flashes for a dayAll gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,Touched by the magic hand of some grave bishop,And all at once becomes a reverend divine—how sleek.* * * * * * * *But let me tell you, in the pompous globeWhich rounds the Dandelion’s head, is couchedDivinity most rare.”To dream of Dandelions betokens misfortune, enemies, and deceit on the part of loved ones. Astrologers claim the Dandelion as a plant of Jupiter.DANEWORT.—The Dwarf Elder (Sambucus Ebulus) is said only to grow where blood has been shed, either in battle or in murder. A patch of it thrives on ground in Worcestershire, where the first blood was drawn in the civil war between the Royalists and the Parliament. The Welsh call itLlysan gwaed gwyr, or “Plant of the blood of men.” A name of similar import is its English one of Death-wort. It is chiefly in connection with the history of the Danes in England, that the superstition holds; wherever the Danes fought and bled, there did the Dwarf Elder, or Dane’s Wood, spring up and flourish. According to Aubrey, the plant obtained the name of Danewort, Daneweed, or Dane’s blood, because it grew plentifully in the neighbourhood of Slaughterford, Wilts, where there was once a stout battle fought with the Danes. Parkinson, however, thinks the plant obtained the name of Danewort because it would cause a flux called the Danes.DAPHNE.—The generic name of Daphne has been given to a race of beautiful low shrubs, after the Nymph Daphne, who was changed by the gods into a Laurel, in order that she might escape the solicitations of Apollo (seeLaurel); because many of the species have Laurel-like leaves. The sweet-scented Daphne Mezereon is very generally known as the Lady Laurel, and is also called Spurge Olive, Spurge Flax, Flowering Spurge, and Dwarf Bay. The name of Mezereon is probably derived from its Persian name,Madzaryoun, which signifies “destroyer of life,” in allusion to the poisonous nature of its bright red berries. Gerarde says, “If a drunkard doe eat one graine or berrie of it, he cannot be allowed to drinke at that time; such will be the heate of his mouth, and choking in the throte.” A decoction of this plant, mixed with other ingredients, is the Lisbon diet-drink, a well-known alterative.——The Russian ladies are reputed to rub their cheeks with the fruit of the Mezereon, in order, by the slight irritation, to heighten their colour.——The Spurge Laurel (Daphne Laureola)possess similar properties to the Mezereon. It is calledTy-vedin Denmark, and is sacred to Tyr, the Scandinavian god of war. It is the badge of the Highland Grahams.——The Flax-leaved Daphne, called by Gerarde the Mountain Widow-Wayle, is supposed to be the herb Casia, mentioned by Virgil and other Roman writers; theCneoronof the Greeks.DATE.—The Date Palm (Phœnix dactylifera) is the Palm of the Oases, and supplies not only food for man and beast, but a variety of useful commodities. This Palm has plume-like leaves, and grows from sixty to eighty feet high, living to a great age, and providing yearly a large crop of fruit. The male and female flowers are borne on separate trees, and it is remarkable that there is a difference in the fructification of the wild Date and the cultivated, though both are the same species. The wild Dates impregnate themselves, but the cultivated trees do not, without the assistance of art. Pontanus, an Italian poet of the fifteenth century, gives a glowing description of a female Date-tree which had stood lonely and barren, near Otranto, until at length a favouring wind wafted towards it the pollen of a male that grew at a distance of fifteen leagues. Father Labat has told of a Date-tree that grew in the island of Martinico, and produced fruit which was much esteemed; but when an increase of the number of Date-trees was wanted, not one could be reared from the seed, and they had to send to Africa for Dates, the stones of which grew readily and produced abundantly. The Date Palm is so abundant in the country between the States of Barbary and the desert (which produces no other kind of tree), that this region is designated as the Land of Dates (Biledulgerid).——The Palm of Palestine is the Date Palm. When the sacred writers wished to describe the majesty and beauty of rectitude, they appealed to the Palm as the fittest emblem which they could select. “He shall grow up and flourish like the Palm-tree” is the promise of David to the just. Mahomet, like the Psalmist of Israel, was wont to compare the virtuous and generous man to the Date-tree:—“He stands erect before his Lord; in every action he follows the impulse received from above; and his whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow-creatures.”——The inhabitants of Medina, who possess the most extensive plantations of Date-trees, say that their prophet caused a tree at once to spring from the kernel at his command, and to stand before his admiring followers in mature fruitfulness and beauty.——The Tamanaquas of South America have a tradition that the human race sprang again from the fruits of the Date Palm after the Mexican age of water.——The Arabs say that when Adam was driven out of Paradise, the Date, the chief of all fruits, was one of the three things which he took with him; the other two being the Myrtle and an ear of Wheat.——A popular legend concerning the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, narrates how a Date Palm, at the command of the child Jesus,bowed down its branches to shade and refresh His mother. Sozomenos relates that, when the Holy Family reached the end of their journey, and approached the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt, a tree which grew before the gates of the city, and was regarded with great veneration as the seat of a god, bowed down its branches at the approach of the infant Christ.——Judæa was typified by the Date Palm upon the coins of Vespasian and Titus. With the Jews, the Date Palm has always been the symbol of triumph, and they carry branches of it in their right hands, in their synagogues, at the Feast of the Tabernacles, in commemoration of their forefathers having gained possession of the Promised Land. In the Christian Church, the remembrance of the Saviour’s ride into Jerusalem amid the hosannas of the people, is associated with the waving of the branches of the Date Palm by the joyous multitude.——An ardent spirit, distilled from Dates and water, is much used by Mahommedans, as it does not come within the prohibition of the Koran against wine. Palm wine is also made from the Date; it is the sap or juice of the tree, and can only be obtained by its destruction.——A curious folk-lore tale of the Chinese records how Wang Chih, a patriarch of the Taouist sect, when one day gathering fire-wood in the mountains of Ku Chow, entered a grotto where some old men were playing at chess. One of the old men handed him a Date-stone, telling him to put it into his mouth. This done, he ceased to feel hunger or thirst. By-and-bye, one of the players said: “It is long since you came here—return at once.” Wang Chih went to take up his axe, and found the handle had mouldered into dust. He went home, but found that centuries had elapsed since the day he set out to cut wood: thereupon he retired to a mountain cell, and devoting himself to religious exercises, finally attained immortality.DEAD TONGUE.—The Water Hemlock (Œnanthe crocata) has received the name of Dead Tongue from its paralysing effects on the organs of voice. Threlkeld tells of eight lads who had eaten it, and of whom “five died before morning, not one of them having spoken a word.” Gerarde relates, that this plant having by mistake been eaten in a salad, “it did well nigh poyson those that ate of it, making them giddie in their heads, waxing very pale, staggering, and reeling like drunken men.”——The plant is described as “one of Saturn’s nosegays.”Deadly Nightshade, orDeath’s Herb.—SeeNightshade.DEODAR.—The sacred Indian Cedar (Cedrus Deodara) forms vast forests in the mountains of Northern India, where it grows to a height varying from fifty to a hundred feet and upwards. It is theDevadâru, or tree-god of theShastras, which, in many of the ancient hymns of the Hindus, is the symbol of power and majesty. The tree is often mentioned by the Indian poets. It was introduced into this country in 1822.DHAK.—The Dhak, or Bastard Teak (Butea frondosa), is one of the sacred trees of India, and one of the most striking of the Indian arboreousLeguminosæ. Both its wood and leaves are highly reverenced, and used in religious ceremonies. The natives, also, are fond of offering the beautiful scarlet flowers in their temples, and the females intertwine the blossoms in their hair.——The flowers yield a superb dye.DILL.—The aromatic plant Dill (Anethum graveolens) is by some supposed to have derived its name from the old Norse worddilla, dull; the seeds being used as a carminative to cause infants to sleep. Boiled in wine, and drunk, the plant was reputed to excite the passions. Dill was formerly highly appreciated as a plant that counteracted the powers of witches and sorcerers:—“The Vervain and the Dill,That hindereth witches of their will.”Astrologers assign Dill to the domination of Mercury.DITTANY.—The ancients consecrated the Dittany of Crete (Origanum Dictamnus) to the goddess Lucina, who presided over the birth of children; and she was often represented wearing a crown of this Dittany. The root was particularly recommended by the oracle of Phthas. The Grecian and Roman women attributed to this plant the most extraordinary properties during childbirth, which, it was believed greatly to facilitate. It is reported, says Gerarde, “that the wilde goats or deere in Candy, when they be wounded with arrowes, do shake them out by eating of this plant, and heal their wounds.” According to Virgil, Venus healed the wounded Æneas with Dittany. Plutarch says that the women of Crete, seeing how the goats, by eating Dittany, cause the arrows to fall from their wounds, learnt to make use of the plant to aid them in childbirth. Gerarde recounts that the plant is most useful in drawing forth splinters of wood, bones, &c., and in the healing of wounds, “especially those made with invenomed weapons, arrowes shot out of guns, or such like.” The juice, he says, is so powerful, that by its mere smell it “drives away venomous beasts, and doth astonish them.” When mixed with wine, the juice was also considered a remedy for the bites of serpents. According to Apuleius, however, the plant possessed the property of killing serpents.The Dittany of Crete, it should be noted, is not to be confounded with the Dittany, Dittander, or Pepper-wort of the English Herbals. This plant, theLepidium latifolium, from its being used by thrifty housewives to season dishes with, obtained the name of Poor Man’s Pepper. It was held to be under Mars.DOCK.—In Cornwall, as a charm, the leaves of the common Dock, wetted with spring water, are applied to burns, and three angels are invoked to come out of the East. It is a common practice, in many parts of England, for anyone suffering from the stingsof a Nettle to apply a cold Dock-leaf to the inflamed spot, the following well-known rhyme being thrice repeated:—“Out Nettle, in Dock:Dock shall have a new smock.”Docks are said by astrologers to be under the dominion of Jupiter.DRACÆNA.—The Dracæna, or Dragon-tree (Dracæna Draco), derives its name from the GreekDrakaina, a female dragon. This tree is found in the East India Islands, the Canaries, Cape Verde, and Sierra Leone. Gerarde thus describes it:—“This strange and admirable tree groweth very great, resembling the Pine-tree.” Among its leaves “come forth little mossie floures, of small moment, and turn into berries of the bignesse of Cherries, of a yellowish colour, round, light, and bitter, covered with a threefold skin, or film, wherein is to be seen, as Monardus and divers others report, the form of a dragon, having a long neck and gaping mouth, the ridge, or back, armed with sharp prickles like the porcupine, with a long taile and foure feet, very easie to be discerned.... The trunk, or body of the tree, is covered with a tough bark, very thin and easie to be opened or wounded with any small toole or instrument; which being so wounded in the dog days, bruised or bored, yields forth drops of a thick red liquor of the name of the tree called Dragon’s Tears, orSanguis Draconis, Dragon’s Bloud.”——This Dragon’s Blood, or Gum Dragon, is well known in medicine as an astringent.——The tooth-brushes called Dragon’s-root, are made from the root of the Dragon-tree, cut into pieces about four inches long, each of which is beaten at one end with a wooden mallet to split it into fibres.——The venerable Dragon-tree of Orotava was for many centuries worshipped as a most sacred tree by the Guanches, or original inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It was considered the twin wonder of the Island of Teneriffe, dividing its interest with the mighty Peak. Humboldt saw it in 1799, when it was considered the oldest and largest of living trees (the giant trees of California being then unknown). The great traveller writes concerning it:—“Its trunk is divided into a great number of branches, which rise in the form of candelabra, and are terminated by tufts of leaves like the Yucca: it still bears every year both leaves and fruit: its aspect feelingly recalls to mind that ‘eternal youth of Nature,’ which is an inexhaustible source of motion and of life.” Since then this sacred tree has been entirely shattered and destroyed by successive storms.Dream Plant.—SeePulsatilla.DRYAS.—The pretty evergreen, Dryas, which blooms on the mountain summits, was so named by Linnæus after the Dryades, or nymphs of the Oaks,—the leaves bearing some resemblance to those of the Oak.DURIAN.—The Durian (Durio Zibethinus) is a native of the East Indies. The fruit of this tree, which is about the size of aman’s head, is regarded by the Malays as the king of fruit, and is reputed to be the most delicious of all the fruits of India. The custard-like pulp in which the large seeds are imbedded, is the part eaten fresh, and resembles cream; yet it is accompanied by such an intolerable stench that, according to Rumphius and Valentyn, it is by law forbidden to throw them out near any public path in Amboyna. The smell is said to resemble certain putrid animal substances, yet all agree that if the first repugnance is once overcome, the fruit is most enjoyable. This fruit is employed as a bait to catch the civet cat; the outer covering is boiled down, and used as a wash for the skin. The seeds are converted into flour, and also used as vegetable ivory.DURVA.—According to Wilson, Durva is the Sanscrit name of theAgrostis linearis, but Carey applies the name toPanicum Dactylon. This species of Millet, like the sacred Kusa grass, is held in much reverence by the Hindus. In De Gubernatis’Mythologie des Plantes, the author states that in theAtharvaveda, they implore the Durva, which grows in the water (i.e., in marshy places), and which has a hundred roots and a hundred stems, to give absolution for a hundred faults, and to prolong for a hundred years the life of him who invokes it. The fact that this herb is the tenderest, the freshest, and the most substantial food for cattle, added to its beauty, has gained it respect; but the Indians think, besides, that a nymph is hidden in the plant. When they celebrate, in India, the festival of the god Indra, on the 14th day of the lunar month Bhadra, they sing and dance, and offer fourteen different kinds of fruit to the god. In that ceremony, the devotees wear, attached to the right arm, leaves of the Durva. At Indian weddings, the women bind together the right arm of the husband and the left arm of his bride with the leaves of Durva. In the Vedic age (and the custom still exists in certain parts of India), before building a house, it was customary to place on the four corner foundation stones some Durva. This plant figures, also, among the eight ingredients which compose theArghya, that is to say, the symbolic offering of Indian hospitality. According to a stanza of thePanchatantra, the Durva sprang from the hair of the cow, as the blue Lotus arose from the cow’s evacuations. The leaf of the Durva is so highly esteemed, that it has passed into a proverb or familiar saying. This leaf is especially attractive to gazelles. The preceding stanza proclaims how happy are those gazelles who eat the herb Durva, for they will never gaze on the face of a man whom riches have made false.EBONY.—TheDiospyros Ebenasteris generally considered to be the true Ebony-tree. This Date-Plum is a native of Ceylon, Cochin China, and the East Indies. Bishop Heber describes the Ebony-tree of Ceylon as a magnificent forest tree, with a tall, black, slender stem, spotted with white. Some judges, however,consider that the real Ebony-tree is theDiospyrus Ebenus, a native of Jamaica.——In ancient times it was much more in use and esteem. Pluto, the sovereign of the infernal regions, is represented as seated on a throne of Ebony; the statues of the Egyptian gods were wrought in Ebony. According to Pausanias, the statue of the Pythian Apollo was formed of this wood; and that writer recounts that a Cyprian, well versed in plant lore, had told him that the true and veritable Ebony was a plant that produced neither leaf, flower, nor fruit; and, moreover, that it grew entirely underground in certain places known to the Æthiopians, who periodically visited those spots, and took away the wood.——Pulverised Ebony, mixed with the charcoal of a burnt snail, is recommended by Sidrach as an application to lessen the white of the eye.——There is an old saying, that a bad man’s heart is as black as Ebony. This, probably, originated from the fact, that while the alburnum of the Ebony-tree is white, its foliage soft and silvery, and its flowers brilliant, the heart alone is really black.——Among the many wonders described by Sir John Maundevile, as having been seen by him when on his Eastern travels, in the fourteenth century, was a certain table of Ebony, or black wood, “that once used to turn into flesh on certain occasions, but whence now drips only oil, which, if kept above a year, becomes good flesh and bone.”EDELWEISS.—The Edelweiss, or Alpine Cudweed (Leontopodium AlpinumorGnaphalium), grows on the Swiss mountains on the line of perpetual snow, and from thence is brought down by travellers as a proof that they reached this altitude. As in many cantons it only grows in nearly inaccessible places, it is considered an act of daring to gather it, and the flower is therefore much valued by the Swiss maidens as a proof of the devotion of their lovers. Although hardy, this plant is delicate and fragile, enveloping itself in soft down, and only blooming on rocks exposed in full midday. Its bloom is surrounded by white velvety leaves; even the stem has a down upon it.——With the exception of theAlpenrose, no other mountain flower is so characteristic of the Alpine districts, so dear to the native heart, so celebrated by Alpine poets, or so popular among Swiss tourists. Indeed, its very popularity has threatened to lead to its extinction in the districts most frequented by visitors; and to prevent this, the German and Tyrolese Alpine Clubs have imposed fines for plucking the Edelweiss, and the Austrian Alpine Club has forbidden its members to continue the custom of wearing a sprig of Edelweiss in their hats.——The worst persecutors of the plant are the picturesque Bergano herdsmen and herdboys, who come up from the Italian side of the Alps at the beginning of the season, and remain on the mountains with their flocks until the snow begins to fall. They pluck up the Edelweiss mercilessly by the roots, which they endeavour to dispose of to passing travellers. The Communes of the Upper Engadine have taken the plant under their protection, and sellers of the plant inits living condition are subject to a fine. The Edelweiss, however, is plentiful still in tracts a little out of the orthodox tourists’ routes, and at Pontresina grows in such profusion as to be used as food for cattle. The Edelweiss is also known by the name of theCotonnier, and is sometimes called Lion’s-foot, because of the resemblance of its woolly hairy flower to the foot of a lion.EGG PLANT.—TheSolanum Melongenahas derived the name of Egg Plant from the shape of its fruit, which is formed like a hen’s egg, and varies in colour from white to pale yellow, pale red, and purple. In the East Indies, they broil this fruit, and eat it with pepper and salt, and the fruit is also relished in Batavia, Greece, Barbary, and Turkey. The inhabitants of the British isles in the West Indies call it Brown-John or Brown-jolly. Miller calls the plant the larger-fruited Nightshade, and says that in his time it was cultivated in the gardens of Spain by the title ofBarenkeena. The Italians call itMelanzana, a corruption of the plant’s ancient Latin name ofMala insana, from whence also came its old English name of Raging Apple or Mad Apple. There does not appear to be any reason for these strange names, although Gerarde cautiously remarks that “doubtless these Apples have a mischievous qualitie, the use whereof is utterly to bee forsaken.”EGLANTINE.—The Sweet Briar (Rosa rubiginosa) is generally understood to be the Eglantine of old English poets, although the name has given rise to much discussion, both as to its meaning, and as to the shrub to which it applies. Chaucer and more ancient poets spelt the word “Eglatere.”
“St. John’s Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in his chamber kept,From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”
“St. John’s Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in his chamber kept,From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”
“St. John’s Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in his chamber kept,
From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”
The old English names of Cyclamen were Sow-bread and Swine-bread.——It was considered under the dominion of Mars.
CYPRESS.—Ovid tells us of the “taper Cypress,” that it is sacred to Apollo, and was once a fair youth, Cyparissus by name, who was a great favourite of the god. Cyparissus became much attached to a “mighty stag,” which grazed on the fertile fields of Cæa and was held sacred to Carthæan nymphs. His constant companion, this gentle stag was one day unwittingly pierced to the heart by a dart thrown by the luckless youth. Overcome with remorse, Cyparissus would fain have killed himself but for the intervention of Apollo, who bade him not mourn more than the loss of the animal required. Unable, however, to conquer his grief, Cyparissus at length prayed the superior powers, that as an expiation, he should be doomed to mourn to all succeeding time: the gods therefore turned him into a Cypress-tree. Ovid thus relates the tale:—
“And now of blood exhausted he appears,Drained by a torrent of continual tears;The fleshy colour in his body fades,And a green tincture all his limbs invades;From his fair head, where curling locks late hung,A horrid bush with bristled branches sprung,Which, stiff’ning by degrees, its stem extends,Till to the starry skies the spire ascends.Apollo sad looked on, and sighing cried,Then be for ever what thy prayer implied;Bemoaned by me, in others grief excite,And still preside at every funeral rite.”—Congreve.
“And now of blood exhausted he appears,Drained by a torrent of continual tears;The fleshy colour in his body fades,And a green tincture all his limbs invades;From his fair head, where curling locks late hung,A horrid bush with bristled branches sprung,Which, stiff’ning by degrees, its stem extends,Till to the starry skies the spire ascends.Apollo sad looked on, and sighing cried,Then be for ever what thy prayer implied;Bemoaned by me, in others grief excite,And still preside at every funeral rite.”—Congreve.
“And now of blood exhausted he appears,
Drained by a torrent of continual tears;
The fleshy colour in his body fades,
And a green tincture all his limbs invades;
From his fair head, where curling locks late hung,
A horrid bush with bristled branches sprung,
Which, stiff’ning by degrees, its stem extends,
Till to the starry skies the spire ascends.
Apollo sad looked on, and sighing cried,
Then be for ever what thy prayer implied;
Bemoaned by me, in others grief excite,
And still preside at every funeral rite.”—Congreve.
According to another account, Silvanus, god of the woods (who is sometimes represented holding a branch of Cypress in his hand), became enamoured of a handsome youth named Cyparissus, whowas changed into the tree bearing his name. Rapin gives the following version of the story:—
“A lovely fawn there was—Sylvanus’ joy,Nor less the fav’rite of the sportive boy,Which on soft grass was in a secret shade,Beneath a tree’s thick branches cooly laid;A luckless dart rash Cyparissus threw,And undesignedly the darling slew.But soon he to his grief the error found,Lamenting, when too late, the fatal wound:Nor yet Sylvanus spared the guiltless child,But the mischance with bitter words reviled,This struck so deep in his relenting breast,With grief and shame, and indignation prest,That tired of life he melted down in tears,From whence th’ impregnate earth a Cypress rears;Ensigns of sorrow these at first were born,Now their fair race the rural scenes adorn.”
“A lovely fawn there was—Sylvanus’ joy,Nor less the fav’rite of the sportive boy,Which on soft grass was in a secret shade,Beneath a tree’s thick branches cooly laid;A luckless dart rash Cyparissus threw,And undesignedly the darling slew.But soon he to his grief the error found,Lamenting, when too late, the fatal wound:Nor yet Sylvanus spared the guiltless child,But the mischance with bitter words reviled,This struck so deep in his relenting breast,With grief and shame, and indignation prest,That tired of life he melted down in tears,From whence th’ impregnate earth a Cypress rears;Ensigns of sorrow these at first were born,Now their fair race the rural scenes adorn.”
“A lovely fawn there was—Sylvanus’ joy,
Nor less the fav’rite of the sportive boy,
Which on soft grass was in a secret shade,
Beneath a tree’s thick branches cooly laid;
A luckless dart rash Cyparissus threw,
And undesignedly the darling slew.
But soon he to his grief the error found,
Lamenting, when too late, the fatal wound:
Nor yet Sylvanus spared the guiltless child,
But the mischance with bitter words reviled,
This struck so deep in his relenting breast,
With grief and shame, and indignation prest,
That tired of life he melted down in tears,
From whence th’ impregnate earth a Cypress rears;
Ensigns of sorrow these at first were born,
Now their fair race the rural scenes adorn.”
In a legend current among the Greeks, the Cypress owes its origin to the daughters of Eteocles, King of Thebes. Carried away by the goddesses in a whirlwind, which kept revolving them in endless circles, they were at length precipitated into a pond, upon which Gæa took compassion on the young girls, and changed them into Cypress-trees.——Perhaps owing to its funereal and sorrowful character, the Cypress has been named as the tree which furnished the wood of the Saviour’s Cross.——An ancient legend referred to in the ‘Gospel of Nicodemus,’ Curzon’s ‘Monasteries of the Levant,’ and other works, carries the history of the Cross back as far as the time of Adam. In substance it is as follows:—Adam, one day, fell sick, and sent his son Seth to the Garden of Eden to ask the guardian angel for some drops of the oil of mercy, distilled from the Tree of Life. The angel replied that none could have that till five thousand years had passed, but gave him a slip of the tree, which was afterwards planted on Adam’s grave, and grew into a goodly tree with three branches. Another version states that the Angel in Paradise gave Seth three seeds, which he placed under Adam’s tongue before burial, from which they grew into the Cypress, the Cedar, and the Pine. These were subsequently carried away by Moses, who cut his rod from them, and King David transplanted them near a fountain at Jerusalem, where the three saplings combined and grew into one grand tree. Under its umbrageous shade he composed his Psalms and lamented his sins. His son Solomon afterwards cut it down for a pillar in his Temple, but no one was able to fix it there. Some say it was preserved in the Temple, while others aver that it formed a bridge across a marsh, which the Queen of Sheba refused to pass, being deterred by a vision of its future burden. It was afterwards buried in the Pool of Bethesda, thereby accounting for the healing properties possessed by its waters. At the Passion, it floated and was taken for the Cross, or, as some say, for the upright beam. HenryMaundrell speaks of a Greek convent, about half an hour’s distance from Jerusalem, where they showed him a hole in the ground under the high altar, where the stump of the tree stood. Sir John Maundevile also says that the spot where the tree grew at Jerusalem was pointed out to him; the wood, he states, formed a bridge over the brook Cedron.——Some versions of the legend of the wood of the Cross state it was made of Cypress, Cedar, Pine, and Box: one names Cypress for the body, Palm for the hands, Cedar for the support of the feet, and Olive for the superscription.——Another version states that the cross beam was of Cypress; the upright beam of “immortal Cedar;” the title of Olive; and the foot-rest of Palm: hence the line—
“Ligna crucis Palma, Cedrus, Cupressus, Oliva.”
“Ligna crucis Palma, Cedrus, Cupressus, Oliva.”
In all countries, and from the earliest times, the Cypress has been deemed the emblem of woe. Gerarde tells us, that it had the reputation of being deadly, and that its shadow was unfortunate. Horace, Virgil, and Ovid all refer to it as a tree both gloomy and funereal. By the Greeks and Romans alike, the “sad” tree was consecrated to Pluto and Proserpine, as well as to the Fates and the Furies. The Greeks crowned with Cypress their tragic Muse Melpomene, and it became an accompaniment of Venus in the annual processions in which she was supposed to lament over Adonis.——The ancients planted the Cypress around graves, and in the event of a death, placed it either before the house or in the vestibule, so that no one about to perform a sacred rite might enter a place polluted with a dead body. The Cypress was probably selected for this purpose because of the belief that, when once cut down, it never springs up again.——But, in connection with its funereal associations, the Cypress has always been highly esteemed as an undying tree, ever verdant, flourishing (Cupressus sempervirens) and odorous, and a tree of which the wood, like the Cedar, is incorruptible. Theophrastus attributes great honour to the tree, and points out how the roofs of old temples became famous by reason of its wood, and that the timber of which the rafters were made was deemed everlasting, because it was unhurt by rotting, moth, worm, or corruption. Martial describes the Cypress as deathless. Gerarde identifies it with theThyaof Pliny and Homer: “He showeth that this is burned among the sweet smells which Circe was much delighted withall.... The verse is extant in the fifth booke of Odysses, where he mentioneth that Mercurie, by Jupiter’s commandment, went to Calypsus’ den, and that he did smell the burnt trees,ThyaandCedrus, a great way off.” Theocritus and Virgil both allude to the fragrance of the Cypress, and on account of the balsamic scent of its timber, chips of it were sometimes employed to flavour wine with. The Athenians buried their heroes in coffins of this wood, and the Egyptians made of it those apparently indestructible chests that contain the mummiesof a bygone age.——Pausanias tells us, that the Greeks guarded scrupulously the Cypresses which grew over the Tomb of Alcmæon, and that these trees attained such a height, that they cast their shadows on the neighbouring mountain. The same writer mentions several groves of Cypress which were looked upon as sacred by the Greeks; for instance, those which surrounded the Temples of Bellerophon and Æsculapius, one of the shrines of Venus, the Tomb of Lais, near Corinth, and a dense wood of Cypress, where were to be seen statues of Apollo, Mercury, and Rhea. Diodorus Siculus, Plato, and Solinus speak of groves of Cypress which were held sacred in Crete, near the ruins of the reputed dwelling of Rhea, and in the vicinity of the Cavern of Zeus. Solinus also remarks on the peculiarity of the Cretan Cypresses in sprouting afresh after being cut down.——P. della Valla, a great traveller of Evelyn’s time, tells of a wonderful Cypress, then extant, near the tomb of Cyrus, to which pilgrimages were made. This tree was hollowed within, and fitted for an oratory, and was noted for a gummy transudation which it yielded, reputed by the Turks to turn, every Friday, into drops of blood.——Plato desired to have the laws engraved on tablets of Cypress, because he thought the wood more durable even than brass: the antique idol of Vejovis (or Vedius), in Cypress-wood, at the Capitol, corroborates this notion. Semiramis selected the timber of the Cypress for his bridge across the Euphrates; the valves, or doors, of the Ephesian temple were of this material, as were also the original gates of St. Peter’s, Rome. It has been thought that theGopher, mentioned in Genesis (vi., 14), of which the Ark was built, was reallyKupros,Cupar, orCuper, the Cypress. Epiphanius relates that some relics of the Ark (circa campos Sennaar) lasted even to his days, and was judged to have been of Cypress. Certain it is that the Cretans employed it in ship-building, and that so frequent was the Cypress in those parts of Assyria where the Ark was supposed to have been built, that the vast armadas which Alexander the Great sent forth from Babylon were constructed of it. Of Cypress-wood were formed Cupid’s darts, Jove’s sceptre, and the club of Hercules used in recovering the cows stolen by the robber Cacus. Either of Fig- or Cypress-wood were fashioned the obscene statues of Priapus set up by the Romans in their gardens and orchards, which were presided over by this lascivious god, who exercised a peculiar faculty of detecting and punishing thieves. The thunderbolts of Indra possessed the like distinctive power. In Northern mythology, the club of Hercules and the thunderbolts of Indra are replaced by the mallet of Thor, which it is not difficult to recognise in the mallet of Cypress-wood that, in Germany, was formerly believed to impart the power of discovering thieves.——From its qualities, the Cypress acquired throughout the East a sacred character. This was more particularly the case in Persia. In the Zend-Avesta, it is accounted divine—consecrated to thepure light of Ormuzd, whose word was first carved on this noble tree. Parsi traditions tell of a Cypress planted by Zoroaster himself, which grew to wondrous dimensions, and beneath the branches of which he built himself a summer-house, forty yards high and forty yards broad. This tree is celebrated in the songs of Firdusi as having had its origin in Paradise. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Cypress, a tree of Paradise, rising in a pyramidal form, with its taper summit pointing to the skies, like the generating flame, should be planted at the gates of the most sacred fire-temples, and, bearing the law inscribed by Zoroaster, should stand in the forecourt of the royal palace and in the middle of pleasure gardens, as a reminiscence of the lost Paradise. This is the reason why sculptured images of the Cypress are found in the temples and palaces of Persepolis; for the Persian kings were servants of Ormuzd. Sacred Cypresses were also found in the very ancient temple of Armavir, in Atropatene, the home of Zoroaster and his light-worship. The Cypress, indeed, reverenced all over Persia, was transmitted as a sacred tree down from the ancient Magi to the Mussulmans of modern times.——From Asia, the Cypress passed to the island of Cyprus (which derived its name from the tree), and here the primitive inhabitants worshipped, under the Phœnician name Beroth, a goddess personified by the Cypress-tree.——According to Claudian, the Cypress was employed by the goddess Ceres as a torch, which she cast into the crater of Etna, in order to stay the eruption of the volcano, and to imprison there Vulcan himself.——An Italian tradition affirms that the Devil comes at midnight to carry off three Cypresses confided to the care of three brothers—a superstitious notion evidently derived from the fact that the tree was by the ancients consecrated to Pluto.——Like all the trees connected with the Phallica, the Cypress is at once a symbol of generation, of death, and of the immortal soul.——In Eastern legends, the Cypress often represents a young lover, and the Rose, his beloved. In a wedding song of the Isle of Crete, the bridegroom is compared to the Cypress, the bride to the scented Narcissus. In Miller’sChrestomathieis a popular Russian song, in which a young girl tells her master that she has dreamed of a Cypress and of a Sugar-tree. The master tells her that the Cypress typifies a husband, and the Sugar-tree a wife; and that the branches are the children, who will gather around them.——At Rome, according to Pliny, they used to plant a Cypress at the birth of a girl, and called it thedotemof the daughter.——The oldest tree on record is the Cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. An ancient chronicle at Milan proves it was a tree in Julius Cæsar’s time,B.C.42. It is 121 feet high, and 23 feet in circumference at one foot from the ground. Napoleon, when laying down the plan for his great road over the Simplon, diverged from a straight line to avoid injuring this tree.——To dream of a Cypress-tree denotes affliction and obstruction in business.
Daffodil,Daffodilly, orDaffadowndilly.—SeeNarcissus.
DAHLIA.—The Dahlia (Dahlia variabilis) is first mentioned in a History of Mexico, by Hernandez (1651): it was next noticed by Menonville, who was employed by the French Minister to steal the cochineal insect from the Spaniards in 1790. The Abbé Cavanilles first described the flower scientifically from a specimen which had bloomed in the Royal Garden of Madrid the previous year, and he named the plant after his friend Andrew Dahl, the Swedish botanist.——The Dahlia was introduced into England in 1789 by Lady Bute from Madrid, but this single plant speedily perished. Cavanilles sent specimens of the three varieties then known to the Jardin des Plantes in 1802, and the flower was very successfully cultivated in France, so that in 1814, on the return of peace, the improved varieties of the Dahlia created quite a sensation among English visitors to Paris. Meanwhile, Lady Holland had in July, 1804, sent Dahlia-seeds to England from Madrid, and ten years after we find her husband thus writing to her:—
“The Dahlia you brought to our isleYour praises for ever shall speak;Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,And in colour as bright as your cheek.”
“The Dahlia you brought to our isleYour praises for ever shall speak;Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,And in colour as bright as your cheek.”
“The Dahlia you brought to our isle
Your praises for ever shall speak;
Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,
And in colour as bright as your cheek.”
It is singular that this favourite flower should have been twice introduced to England through the ladies of two of her most noted statesmen, and that the first introduction should mark the year when France became revolutionized, and the second that which saw Napoleon made Emperor of the French nation: it is from these incidents that the Dahlia in floral language has been selected as the symbol of “instability.”——In Germany and Russia, the flower is called Georgina, after a St. Petersburg professor.
DAISY.—The legend connected with the Daisy, orBellis, runs that this favourite little flower owes its origin to one of the Belides, who were grand-daughters of Danaus, and belonged to the race of Nymphs, called Dryads, presiding over woodlands, pastures, and meadows: she is said to have encouraged the suit of the rural divinity, Ephigeus, but whilst dancing on the sward with him, chanced to attract the admiration of Vertumnus, the guardian deity of orchards, and to enable her to escape from his amorous embrace, she was transformed into the humble flower namedBellis. Thus Rapin says:—
“When the bright ram, bedecked with stars and gold,Displays his fleece, the Daisy will unfoldTo nymphs a chaplet, and to beds a grace,Who once herself had borne a virgin’s face.”
“When the bright ram, bedecked with stars and gold,Displays his fleece, the Daisy will unfoldTo nymphs a chaplet, and to beds a grace,Who once herself had borne a virgin’s face.”
“When the bright ram, bedecked with stars and gold,
Displays his fleece, the Daisy will unfold
To nymphs a chaplet, and to beds a grace,
Who once herself had borne a virgin’s face.”
Chaucer, however, who appears to have been passionately fond of the Daisy, and never tired of singing its praises, tells us that the Queen Alceste was changed into the flower, and that she had as many virtues as there were florets in it.
“Hast thou not a book in thy cheste,The great goodnesse of the Queene AlcesteThat turned was into a Daisie?She that for her husband chose to die,And eke to gone to hell rather than lie.And Hercules rescued her, parde,And brought her out of hell again to bliss?And I answered againe, and said ‘Yes,’Now I knowe her, and this is good Alceste,The Daisie, and mine own hertes rest?”
“Hast thou not a book in thy cheste,The great goodnesse of the Queene AlcesteThat turned was into a Daisie?She that for her husband chose to die,And eke to gone to hell rather than lie.And Hercules rescued her, parde,And brought her out of hell again to bliss?And I answered againe, and said ‘Yes,’Now I knowe her, and this is good Alceste,The Daisie, and mine own hertes rest?”
“Hast thou not a book in thy cheste,
The great goodnesse of the Queene Alceste
That turned was into a Daisie?
She that for her husband chose to die,
And eke to gone to hell rather than lie.
And Hercules rescued her, parde,
And brought her out of hell again to bliss?
And I answered againe, and said ‘Yes,’
Now I knowe her, and this is good Alceste,
The Daisie, and mine own hertes rest?”
Ossian gives another origin. Malvina, weeping beside the tomb of Fingal, for Oscar and his infant son, is comforted by the maids of Morven, who narrate how they have seen the innocent infant borne on a light mist, pouring upon the fields a fresh harvest of flowers, amongst which rises one with golden disc, encircled with rays of silver, tipped with a delicate tint of crimson. “Dry thy tears, O Malvina,” cried the maidens; “the flower of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills of Cromla.”——The ancient English name of the flower was Day’s Eye, in which way it was written by Ben Jonson; and Chaucer calls it the “ee of the daie.” Probably it received this designation from its habit of closing its petals at night and during rainy weather.——There is a popular superstition, that if you omit to put your foot on the first Daisy you see in Spring, Daisies will grow over you or someone dear to you ere the year be out; and in some English counties an old saying is current that Spring has not arrived until you can plant your foot upon twelve Daisies.——Alphonse Karr, speaking of the Paquerette, or Easter Daisy, says, “There is a plant that no insect, no animal attacks—that ornament of the field, with golden disc and rays of silver, spread in such profusion at our feet: nothing is so humble, nothing is so much respected.” (SeeMarguerite).——Daisy-roots worn about the person were formerly deemed to prove efficacious in the cure of certain maladies; and Bacon, in hisSylva Sylvarum, tells us “There is also a received tale, that boiling of Daisy-roots in milk (which it is certain are great driers) will make dogs little.”——An old writer (1696) says that they who wish to have pleasant dreams of the loved and absent should put Daisy-roots under their pillow.——It is considered lucky to dream of Daisies in Spring or Summer, but bad in the Autumn or Winter. Daisies are herbs of Venus, under Cancer.
DAMES’ VIOLET.—The species of Rocket calledHesperis matronalis, the Night-smelling Rocket, is much cultivated for the evening fragrance of its flowers: hence the ladies of Germany keep it in pots in their apartments, from which circumstance the flower is said to have obtained the name of Dames’ Violet. It is also called Damask Violet, a name derived from the LatinViola Damascena, the Damascus Violet. In French this isViolette de Damas, which has probably been misunderstood asViolette des Dames, and has hence become, in English, Dames’ Violet. (SeeRocket.)
DANDELION.—The Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) derives its name from the FrenchDent de lion, lion’s tooth. (Latin,Dens leonis). In nearly every European language the flower bears a similar name, given to it presumably either from the whiteness of its root, the auriferous hue of its flower, which recalls the golden teeth of the heraldic lion, or its jagged leaf, which was supposed to resemble a lion’s tooth. De Gubernatis connects the name with the Sun (Helios), and states that a lion was the animal-symbol of the Sun, and that all plants named after him are essentially plants of the Sun. Certainly the appearance of the Dandelion-flower is very suggestive of the ancient representations of the Sun.——In German Switzerland, the children form chains of the stalks of Dandelions, and holding the garland in their hands, they dance round and round in a circle.——The Dandelion is called the rustic oracle: its flowers always open about five a.m. and shut at eight p.m., serving the shepherd for a clock—
“Leontodons unfoldOn the swart turf their ray-encircled gold,With Sol’s expanding beam the flowers unclose,And rising Hesper lights them to repose.”—Darwin.
“Leontodons unfoldOn the swart turf their ray-encircled gold,With Sol’s expanding beam the flowers unclose,And rising Hesper lights them to repose.”—Darwin.
“Leontodons unfold
On the swart turf their ray-encircled gold,
With Sol’s expanding beam the flowers unclose,
And rising Hesper lights them to repose.”—Darwin.
As the flower is the shepherd’s clock, so are the feathery seed-tufts his barometer, predicting calm or storm. These downy seed-balls, which children blow off to find out the hour of the day, serve for other oracular purposes. Are you separated from the object of your love?—carefully pluck one of the feathery heads, charge each of the little feathers composing it with a tender thought; turn towards the spot where the loved one dwells; blow, and the seed-ball will convey your message faithfully. Do you wish to know if that dear one is thinking of you, blow again; and if there be left upon the stalk a single aigrette, it is a proof you are not forgotten. Similarly the Dandelion is consulted as to whether the lover lives east, west, north, or south, and whether he is coming or not.
“Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off,And at each, cry, yes—no—yes;I blow the down from the dry Hawkweed,Once, twice—hah! it flies amiss!”—Scott.
“Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off,And at each, cry, yes—no—yes;I blow the down from the dry Hawkweed,Once, twice—hah! it flies amiss!”—Scott.
“Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off,
And at each, cry, yes—no—yes;
I blow the down from the dry Hawkweed,
Once, twice—hah! it flies amiss!”—Scott.
Old herbalists had great faith in the Dandelion as a wonderful help to consumptive people. More recently, in the county of Donegal, an old woman skilled in simples has treated her patients for “heart fever,” or dyspepsia, as follows:—She measures the sufferer three times round the waist with a ribbon, to the outer edge of which is fastened a green thread. If the patient be mistaken in supposing himself affected with heart fever, this green thread will remain in its place, but should he really have the disorder, it is found that the green thread has left the edge of the ribbon and lies curled up in the centre. At the third measuring, the simpler prays for a blessing. She next hands the patient nine leaves of “heart fever grass,” or Dandelion, gathered by herself,directing him to cut three leaves on three successive mornings.——Hurdis, in his poem of ‘The Village Curate,’ fantastically compares the sparkling undergraduate and the staid divine to the Dandelion in the two stages of its existence:—
“Dandelion this,A college youth, that flashes for a dayAll gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,Touched by the magic hand of some grave bishop,And all at once becomes a reverend divine—how sleek.* * * * * * * *But let me tell you, in the pompous globeWhich rounds the Dandelion’s head, is couchedDivinity most rare.”
“Dandelion this,A college youth, that flashes for a dayAll gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,Touched by the magic hand of some grave bishop,And all at once becomes a reverend divine—how sleek.* * * * * * * *But let me tell you, in the pompous globeWhich rounds the Dandelion’s head, is couchedDivinity most rare.”
“Dandelion this,
A college youth, that flashes for a day
All gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,
Touched by the magic hand of some grave bishop,
And all at once becomes a reverend divine—how sleek.
* * * * * * * *
But let me tell you, in the pompous globe
Which rounds the Dandelion’s head, is couched
Divinity most rare.”
To dream of Dandelions betokens misfortune, enemies, and deceit on the part of loved ones. Astrologers claim the Dandelion as a plant of Jupiter.
DANEWORT.—The Dwarf Elder (Sambucus Ebulus) is said only to grow where blood has been shed, either in battle or in murder. A patch of it thrives on ground in Worcestershire, where the first blood was drawn in the civil war between the Royalists and the Parliament. The Welsh call itLlysan gwaed gwyr, or “Plant of the blood of men.” A name of similar import is its English one of Death-wort. It is chiefly in connection with the history of the Danes in England, that the superstition holds; wherever the Danes fought and bled, there did the Dwarf Elder, or Dane’s Wood, spring up and flourish. According to Aubrey, the plant obtained the name of Danewort, Daneweed, or Dane’s blood, because it grew plentifully in the neighbourhood of Slaughterford, Wilts, where there was once a stout battle fought with the Danes. Parkinson, however, thinks the plant obtained the name of Danewort because it would cause a flux called the Danes.
DAPHNE.—The generic name of Daphne has been given to a race of beautiful low shrubs, after the Nymph Daphne, who was changed by the gods into a Laurel, in order that she might escape the solicitations of Apollo (seeLaurel); because many of the species have Laurel-like leaves. The sweet-scented Daphne Mezereon is very generally known as the Lady Laurel, and is also called Spurge Olive, Spurge Flax, Flowering Spurge, and Dwarf Bay. The name of Mezereon is probably derived from its Persian name,Madzaryoun, which signifies “destroyer of life,” in allusion to the poisonous nature of its bright red berries. Gerarde says, “If a drunkard doe eat one graine or berrie of it, he cannot be allowed to drinke at that time; such will be the heate of his mouth, and choking in the throte.” A decoction of this plant, mixed with other ingredients, is the Lisbon diet-drink, a well-known alterative.——The Russian ladies are reputed to rub their cheeks with the fruit of the Mezereon, in order, by the slight irritation, to heighten their colour.——The Spurge Laurel (Daphne Laureola)possess similar properties to the Mezereon. It is calledTy-vedin Denmark, and is sacred to Tyr, the Scandinavian god of war. It is the badge of the Highland Grahams.——The Flax-leaved Daphne, called by Gerarde the Mountain Widow-Wayle, is supposed to be the herb Casia, mentioned by Virgil and other Roman writers; theCneoronof the Greeks.
DATE.—The Date Palm (Phœnix dactylifera) is the Palm of the Oases, and supplies not only food for man and beast, but a variety of useful commodities. This Palm has plume-like leaves, and grows from sixty to eighty feet high, living to a great age, and providing yearly a large crop of fruit. The male and female flowers are borne on separate trees, and it is remarkable that there is a difference in the fructification of the wild Date and the cultivated, though both are the same species. The wild Dates impregnate themselves, but the cultivated trees do not, without the assistance of art. Pontanus, an Italian poet of the fifteenth century, gives a glowing description of a female Date-tree which had stood lonely and barren, near Otranto, until at length a favouring wind wafted towards it the pollen of a male that grew at a distance of fifteen leagues. Father Labat has told of a Date-tree that grew in the island of Martinico, and produced fruit which was much esteemed; but when an increase of the number of Date-trees was wanted, not one could be reared from the seed, and they had to send to Africa for Dates, the stones of which grew readily and produced abundantly. The Date Palm is so abundant in the country between the States of Barbary and the desert (which produces no other kind of tree), that this region is designated as the Land of Dates (Biledulgerid).——The Palm of Palestine is the Date Palm. When the sacred writers wished to describe the majesty and beauty of rectitude, they appealed to the Palm as the fittest emblem which they could select. “He shall grow up and flourish like the Palm-tree” is the promise of David to the just. Mahomet, like the Psalmist of Israel, was wont to compare the virtuous and generous man to the Date-tree:—“He stands erect before his Lord; in every action he follows the impulse received from above; and his whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow-creatures.”——The inhabitants of Medina, who possess the most extensive plantations of Date-trees, say that their prophet caused a tree at once to spring from the kernel at his command, and to stand before his admiring followers in mature fruitfulness and beauty.——The Tamanaquas of South America have a tradition that the human race sprang again from the fruits of the Date Palm after the Mexican age of water.——The Arabs say that when Adam was driven out of Paradise, the Date, the chief of all fruits, was one of the three things which he took with him; the other two being the Myrtle and an ear of Wheat.——A popular legend concerning the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, narrates how a Date Palm, at the command of the child Jesus,bowed down its branches to shade and refresh His mother. Sozomenos relates that, when the Holy Family reached the end of their journey, and approached the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt, a tree which grew before the gates of the city, and was regarded with great veneration as the seat of a god, bowed down its branches at the approach of the infant Christ.——Judæa was typified by the Date Palm upon the coins of Vespasian and Titus. With the Jews, the Date Palm has always been the symbol of triumph, and they carry branches of it in their right hands, in their synagogues, at the Feast of the Tabernacles, in commemoration of their forefathers having gained possession of the Promised Land. In the Christian Church, the remembrance of the Saviour’s ride into Jerusalem amid the hosannas of the people, is associated with the waving of the branches of the Date Palm by the joyous multitude.——An ardent spirit, distilled from Dates and water, is much used by Mahommedans, as it does not come within the prohibition of the Koran against wine. Palm wine is also made from the Date; it is the sap or juice of the tree, and can only be obtained by its destruction.——A curious folk-lore tale of the Chinese records how Wang Chih, a patriarch of the Taouist sect, when one day gathering fire-wood in the mountains of Ku Chow, entered a grotto where some old men were playing at chess. One of the old men handed him a Date-stone, telling him to put it into his mouth. This done, he ceased to feel hunger or thirst. By-and-bye, one of the players said: “It is long since you came here—return at once.” Wang Chih went to take up his axe, and found the handle had mouldered into dust. He went home, but found that centuries had elapsed since the day he set out to cut wood: thereupon he retired to a mountain cell, and devoting himself to religious exercises, finally attained immortality.
DEAD TONGUE.—The Water Hemlock (Œnanthe crocata) has received the name of Dead Tongue from its paralysing effects on the organs of voice. Threlkeld tells of eight lads who had eaten it, and of whom “five died before morning, not one of them having spoken a word.” Gerarde relates, that this plant having by mistake been eaten in a salad, “it did well nigh poyson those that ate of it, making them giddie in their heads, waxing very pale, staggering, and reeling like drunken men.”——The plant is described as “one of Saturn’s nosegays.”
Deadly Nightshade, orDeath’s Herb.—SeeNightshade.
DEODAR.—The sacred Indian Cedar (Cedrus Deodara) forms vast forests in the mountains of Northern India, where it grows to a height varying from fifty to a hundred feet and upwards. It is theDevadâru, or tree-god of theShastras, which, in many of the ancient hymns of the Hindus, is the symbol of power and majesty. The tree is often mentioned by the Indian poets. It was introduced into this country in 1822.
DHAK.—The Dhak, or Bastard Teak (Butea frondosa), is one of the sacred trees of India, and one of the most striking of the Indian arboreousLeguminosæ. Both its wood and leaves are highly reverenced, and used in religious ceremonies. The natives, also, are fond of offering the beautiful scarlet flowers in their temples, and the females intertwine the blossoms in their hair.——The flowers yield a superb dye.
DILL.—The aromatic plant Dill (Anethum graveolens) is by some supposed to have derived its name from the old Norse worddilla, dull; the seeds being used as a carminative to cause infants to sleep. Boiled in wine, and drunk, the plant was reputed to excite the passions. Dill was formerly highly appreciated as a plant that counteracted the powers of witches and sorcerers:—
“The Vervain and the Dill,That hindereth witches of their will.”
“The Vervain and the Dill,That hindereth witches of their will.”
“The Vervain and the Dill,
That hindereth witches of their will.”
Astrologers assign Dill to the domination of Mercury.
DITTANY.—The ancients consecrated the Dittany of Crete (Origanum Dictamnus) to the goddess Lucina, who presided over the birth of children; and she was often represented wearing a crown of this Dittany. The root was particularly recommended by the oracle of Phthas. The Grecian and Roman women attributed to this plant the most extraordinary properties during childbirth, which, it was believed greatly to facilitate. It is reported, says Gerarde, “that the wilde goats or deere in Candy, when they be wounded with arrowes, do shake them out by eating of this plant, and heal their wounds.” According to Virgil, Venus healed the wounded Æneas with Dittany. Plutarch says that the women of Crete, seeing how the goats, by eating Dittany, cause the arrows to fall from their wounds, learnt to make use of the plant to aid them in childbirth. Gerarde recounts that the plant is most useful in drawing forth splinters of wood, bones, &c., and in the healing of wounds, “especially those made with invenomed weapons, arrowes shot out of guns, or such like.” The juice, he says, is so powerful, that by its mere smell it “drives away venomous beasts, and doth astonish them.” When mixed with wine, the juice was also considered a remedy for the bites of serpents. According to Apuleius, however, the plant possessed the property of killing serpents.
The Dittany of Crete, it should be noted, is not to be confounded with the Dittany, Dittander, or Pepper-wort of the English Herbals. This plant, theLepidium latifolium, from its being used by thrifty housewives to season dishes with, obtained the name of Poor Man’s Pepper. It was held to be under Mars.
DOCK.—In Cornwall, as a charm, the leaves of the common Dock, wetted with spring water, are applied to burns, and three angels are invoked to come out of the East. It is a common practice, in many parts of England, for anyone suffering from the stingsof a Nettle to apply a cold Dock-leaf to the inflamed spot, the following well-known rhyme being thrice repeated:—
“Out Nettle, in Dock:Dock shall have a new smock.”
“Out Nettle, in Dock:Dock shall have a new smock.”
“Out Nettle, in Dock:
Dock shall have a new smock.”
Docks are said by astrologers to be under the dominion of Jupiter.
DRACÆNA.—The Dracæna, or Dragon-tree (Dracæna Draco), derives its name from the GreekDrakaina, a female dragon. This tree is found in the East India Islands, the Canaries, Cape Verde, and Sierra Leone. Gerarde thus describes it:—“This strange and admirable tree groweth very great, resembling the Pine-tree.” Among its leaves “come forth little mossie floures, of small moment, and turn into berries of the bignesse of Cherries, of a yellowish colour, round, light, and bitter, covered with a threefold skin, or film, wherein is to be seen, as Monardus and divers others report, the form of a dragon, having a long neck and gaping mouth, the ridge, or back, armed with sharp prickles like the porcupine, with a long taile and foure feet, very easie to be discerned.... The trunk, or body of the tree, is covered with a tough bark, very thin and easie to be opened or wounded with any small toole or instrument; which being so wounded in the dog days, bruised or bored, yields forth drops of a thick red liquor of the name of the tree called Dragon’s Tears, orSanguis Draconis, Dragon’s Bloud.”——This Dragon’s Blood, or Gum Dragon, is well known in medicine as an astringent.——The tooth-brushes called Dragon’s-root, are made from the root of the Dragon-tree, cut into pieces about four inches long, each of which is beaten at one end with a wooden mallet to split it into fibres.——The venerable Dragon-tree of Orotava was for many centuries worshipped as a most sacred tree by the Guanches, or original inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It was considered the twin wonder of the Island of Teneriffe, dividing its interest with the mighty Peak. Humboldt saw it in 1799, when it was considered the oldest and largest of living trees (the giant trees of California being then unknown). The great traveller writes concerning it:—“Its trunk is divided into a great number of branches, which rise in the form of candelabra, and are terminated by tufts of leaves like the Yucca: it still bears every year both leaves and fruit: its aspect feelingly recalls to mind that ‘eternal youth of Nature,’ which is an inexhaustible source of motion and of life.” Since then this sacred tree has been entirely shattered and destroyed by successive storms.
Dream Plant.—SeePulsatilla.
DRYAS.—The pretty evergreen, Dryas, which blooms on the mountain summits, was so named by Linnæus after the Dryades, or nymphs of the Oaks,—the leaves bearing some resemblance to those of the Oak.
DURIAN.—The Durian (Durio Zibethinus) is a native of the East Indies. The fruit of this tree, which is about the size of aman’s head, is regarded by the Malays as the king of fruit, and is reputed to be the most delicious of all the fruits of India. The custard-like pulp in which the large seeds are imbedded, is the part eaten fresh, and resembles cream; yet it is accompanied by such an intolerable stench that, according to Rumphius and Valentyn, it is by law forbidden to throw them out near any public path in Amboyna. The smell is said to resemble certain putrid animal substances, yet all agree that if the first repugnance is once overcome, the fruit is most enjoyable. This fruit is employed as a bait to catch the civet cat; the outer covering is boiled down, and used as a wash for the skin. The seeds are converted into flour, and also used as vegetable ivory.
DURVA.—According to Wilson, Durva is the Sanscrit name of theAgrostis linearis, but Carey applies the name toPanicum Dactylon. This species of Millet, like the sacred Kusa grass, is held in much reverence by the Hindus. In De Gubernatis’Mythologie des Plantes, the author states that in theAtharvaveda, they implore the Durva, which grows in the water (i.e., in marshy places), and which has a hundred roots and a hundred stems, to give absolution for a hundred faults, and to prolong for a hundred years the life of him who invokes it. The fact that this herb is the tenderest, the freshest, and the most substantial food for cattle, added to its beauty, has gained it respect; but the Indians think, besides, that a nymph is hidden in the plant. When they celebrate, in India, the festival of the god Indra, on the 14th day of the lunar month Bhadra, they sing and dance, and offer fourteen different kinds of fruit to the god. In that ceremony, the devotees wear, attached to the right arm, leaves of the Durva. At Indian weddings, the women bind together the right arm of the husband and the left arm of his bride with the leaves of Durva. In the Vedic age (and the custom still exists in certain parts of India), before building a house, it was customary to place on the four corner foundation stones some Durva. This plant figures, also, among the eight ingredients which compose theArghya, that is to say, the symbolic offering of Indian hospitality. According to a stanza of thePanchatantra, the Durva sprang from the hair of the cow, as the blue Lotus arose from the cow’s evacuations. The leaf of the Durva is so highly esteemed, that it has passed into a proverb or familiar saying. This leaf is especially attractive to gazelles. The preceding stanza proclaims how happy are those gazelles who eat the herb Durva, for they will never gaze on the face of a man whom riches have made false.
EBONY.—TheDiospyros Ebenasteris generally considered to be the true Ebony-tree. This Date-Plum is a native of Ceylon, Cochin China, and the East Indies. Bishop Heber describes the Ebony-tree of Ceylon as a magnificent forest tree, with a tall, black, slender stem, spotted with white. Some judges, however,consider that the real Ebony-tree is theDiospyrus Ebenus, a native of Jamaica.——In ancient times it was much more in use and esteem. Pluto, the sovereign of the infernal regions, is represented as seated on a throne of Ebony; the statues of the Egyptian gods were wrought in Ebony. According to Pausanias, the statue of the Pythian Apollo was formed of this wood; and that writer recounts that a Cyprian, well versed in plant lore, had told him that the true and veritable Ebony was a plant that produced neither leaf, flower, nor fruit; and, moreover, that it grew entirely underground in certain places known to the Æthiopians, who periodically visited those spots, and took away the wood.——Pulverised Ebony, mixed with the charcoal of a burnt snail, is recommended by Sidrach as an application to lessen the white of the eye.——There is an old saying, that a bad man’s heart is as black as Ebony. This, probably, originated from the fact, that while the alburnum of the Ebony-tree is white, its foliage soft and silvery, and its flowers brilliant, the heart alone is really black.——Among the many wonders described by Sir John Maundevile, as having been seen by him when on his Eastern travels, in the fourteenth century, was a certain table of Ebony, or black wood, “that once used to turn into flesh on certain occasions, but whence now drips only oil, which, if kept above a year, becomes good flesh and bone.”
EDELWEISS.—The Edelweiss, or Alpine Cudweed (Leontopodium AlpinumorGnaphalium), grows on the Swiss mountains on the line of perpetual snow, and from thence is brought down by travellers as a proof that they reached this altitude. As in many cantons it only grows in nearly inaccessible places, it is considered an act of daring to gather it, and the flower is therefore much valued by the Swiss maidens as a proof of the devotion of their lovers. Although hardy, this plant is delicate and fragile, enveloping itself in soft down, and only blooming on rocks exposed in full midday. Its bloom is surrounded by white velvety leaves; even the stem has a down upon it.——With the exception of theAlpenrose, no other mountain flower is so characteristic of the Alpine districts, so dear to the native heart, so celebrated by Alpine poets, or so popular among Swiss tourists. Indeed, its very popularity has threatened to lead to its extinction in the districts most frequented by visitors; and to prevent this, the German and Tyrolese Alpine Clubs have imposed fines for plucking the Edelweiss, and the Austrian Alpine Club has forbidden its members to continue the custom of wearing a sprig of Edelweiss in their hats.——The worst persecutors of the plant are the picturesque Bergano herdsmen and herdboys, who come up from the Italian side of the Alps at the beginning of the season, and remain on the mountains with their flocks until the snow begins to fall. They pluck up the Edelweiss mercilessly by the roots, which they endeavour to dispose of to passing travellers. The Communes of the Upper Engadine have taken the plant under their protection, and sellers of the plant inits living condition are subject to a fine. The Edelweiss, however, is plentiful still in tracts a little out of the orthodox tourists’ routes, and at Pontresina grows in such profusion as to be used as food for cattle. The Edelweiss is also known by the name of theCotonnier, and is sometimes called Lion’s-foot, because of the resemblance of its woolly hairy flower to the foot of a lion.
EGG PLANT.—TheSolanum Melongenahas derived the name of Egg Plant from the shape of its fruit, which is formed like a hen’s egg, and varies in colour from white to pale yellow, pale red, and purple. In the East Indies, they broil this fruit, and eat it with pepper and salt, and the fruit is also relished in Batavia, Greece, Barbary, and Turkey. The inhabitants of the British isles in the West Indies call it Brown-John or Brown-jolly. Miller calls the plant the larger-fruited Nightshade, and says that in his time it was cultivated in the gardens of Spain by the title ofBarenkeena. The Italians call itMelanzana, a corruption of the plant’s ancient Latin name ofMala insana, from whence also came its old English name of Raging Apple or Mad Apple. There does not appear to be any reason for these strange names, although Gerarde cautiously remarks that “doubtless these Apples have a mischievous qualitie, the use whereof is utterly to bee forsaken.”
EGLANTINE.—The Sweet Briar (Rosa rubiginosa) is generally understood to be the Eglantine of old English poets, although the name has given rise to much discussion, both as to its meaning, and as to the shrub to which it applies. Chaucer and more ancient poets spelt the word “Eglatere.”