180 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 
is a remedy against mildew in wheat. It is called Fairy ‘Thorn in 
Brittany and Ireland. To dream of it is a good omen. When many 
blossoms are seen a severe winter will follow. 
“When the hawthorn bloom too early shows, 
We shall have still many snows.” 
The Scots have a proverb: 
“Mony havws, 
Mony snaws”. 
A person is said to ‘sit on thorns” who is continually uneasy. 
May Day is a survival of the old Floralia, and the Grecian bride’s 
wreath was of May, and is still worn at the Greek nuptials, the altar 
being decorated with it. People went “ maying” soon after midnight. 
“°T is as much impossible, 
Unless we sweep them from the doors with cannons, 
To scatter ’em, as ’t is to make ’em sleep 
On May Day morning.” 
If White-thorn blossoms are brought into the house in Essex it is a 
sign of death. Many rhymes have been made up to serve as formule 
to cure pricks from thorns. The leaves were put in ale to cure a 
speechless man. 
It is grown for hedges, and is a useful source of firewood. It is 
also an ornamental shrub in parks and gardens, and there are several 
varieties. 
ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS :— 
108. Crategus Oxyacantha, ..—Tree, branched, spinose, leaves 
obovate, serrate, lobed, stipules leafy, flowers white, corymbose, calyx 
glabrous, styles 1-3, fruit red, enclosing the so-called stone. 
Bryony (Bryonia dioica, Jacq.) 
South of Denmark in Europe, in N. Africa, and W. Asia, that is 
to say, the North Temperate Zone, is the limit of the Bryony to-day, 
its earlier history not being known. In Great Britain it is local, 
but widely dispersed in the Peninsula province; it is absent in Corn- 
wall, but occurs throughout the Channel, Thames, Anglia, and Severn 
provinces. In Wales it is found only in Glamorgan, Brecon, Denbigh, 
and Flint. It is common in the whole of the Trent province, but 
in the Mersey province is absent from Mid Lancs, but occurs through- 
