4i6 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



enamoured of it, but finding that he could not reach 

 it, grew desperate, and killed himself. His blood 

 was changed into the flower which still bears his 

 name. The nymphs raised a pile to burn his body, 

 but only found a beautiful flower.^ 



Daphne fleeing from Apollo, and fearful of being 

 caught, implored the assistance of the gods, who 

 changed her into a laurel. Apollo crowned his head 

 with the leaves, and for ever ordered that the tree 

 should be sacred to his divinity. At a festival in 

 honour of Apollo, which was held every ninth year, 

 laurel boughs were carried in procession. 



Adonis, the favourite of Venus, was fond of hunting 



and in an encounter \\\\h. a wild boar was so wounded 



that he died. The legend states that the grief of 



Venus was so great, that, as she wept over his dead 



body, the blood was transformed into roses, and the 



tears of the goddess herself into the anemone or 



* *' wind-flower." 



Alas the Paphian ! fair Adonis slain, 



Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain. 



But gentle flowers are born, and bloom around 



From every drop that pours upon the ground ; 



Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose, 



And, wheie a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows.^ 



In the sacred rites of Ceres, the Athenian matrons 



* Ovid " Metamorphoses," iii., v. 346. 

 2 Bion, Idyl I., 62. 



