246 WILD FLOWEES OF 



It was also an ancient practice to scatter flowers 

 upon the streams at shearing time, and this is still 

 done in some secluded spots in the present day. 



Anciently, the flowers of the woods, fields, and 

 gardens, were intimately associated with the festivals 

 of the church, and when the style was altered in the 

 last century, many people who had slips in their 

 gardens from the celebrated Holy Thorn of Glaston- 

 bury, said to flower only on the eve of our Saviour's 

 nativity, boldly appealed to it to solve their doubts, 

 and as the thorn, true to its usual time, could not be 

 persuaded to accelerate its budding, Old Christinas 

 Day was long kept in defiance of the Act of Parlia- 

 ment, and even now, in secluded parishes, is honoured 

 as alone worthy of hallowed respect. The old rhyming 

 anthology says alluding to the longest day being- 

 then associated with the feast of St. Barnabas 



" When St. Barnaby bright smiles night and day, 

 Poor ragged Robin blooms in the hay ; 



and certainly we may rest assured that Summer is 

 not come till this plant, Lychnis flos-cuculi, shows its 

 ragged red petals in the grass. Another plant, still 

 more true to the first summer days of June than the 

 Bagged Robin, is the Silver- weed (Potentilla anserina), 

 which, distinguished by its creeping argenteous leaves 

 and brilliant golden flowers, now burnishes the sides 

 of roads and heathy spots. At this time, too, the 

 Yellow-Battle (RJiinantJius Crista-galli), abounds in 

 the grass of meadows, and when its seeds rattle spon- 

 taneously in their capsules, like dice in a box, the 

 grass is then said to be ripe for cutting, and Hay- 

 harvest commences. 



The St. John's "Wort, (ILypericwi,} bears its title 



