312 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



When the image of Mary was removed from the 

 altars, on a certain day each year, its place was strewn 

 with the emblems of purity and chastity, or Snow- 

 drops. It is the emblem of Our Lady on February 

 2nd, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed 

 Virgin. 



" The Snowdrop in purest white arraie, 

 First rears her hedde on Candlemas daie." 



{An Early Calendar of English Flowers.) 



The Snowdrop was sacred to virgins and often 

 placed around old monastic buildings. 



" A flow'r that first in this sweet garden smil'd 

 To virgins sacred, and the snowdrop styl'd." 



{Tickell.) 



It was the emblem also of consolation and hope. 



Mrs. Latham writes : 



" Hearing a child violently scolded for bringing 

 into the house a single Snowdrop, which the mother 

 called a death-token, I asked her why she gave this 

 pretty flower so bad a name, and was informed that 

 it looked for all the world Hke a corpse in its shroud, 

 and that it always kept itself quite close to the earth, 

 seeming to belong more to the dead than to the 

 living. Why she believed that a single one brought 

 death with it, whilst she regarded any larger number 

 of them as harmless, she did not explain." 



Galanthus nivalis. — In the illustration, Fig. 84, 

 a clump of snowdrops of the douhle-flowered garden 

 variety is shown. Note the tufts of leaves and the 

 white outer perianth-segments. 



