426 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



Avestward of Gennesaret, we cannot be sure what 

 flower of deepest interest our Lord pointed to when 

 He bade His hearers " consider the lilies of the field." 

 Sir J. E. Smith, the great botanist, suggested that 

 it was the amaryllis {Stcrnbergia luted), whose golden 

 flowers outshone " Solomon in all his glory ;" others 

 have preferred to award the honour of having sug- 

 gested the famous comparison to the " lily of 

 Byzantium," or scarlet martagon lily, which de- 

 corates the plains of Galilee in early summer, when 

 the Sermon on the Mount is believed to have been 

 delivered, with floral pyramids of scarlet which arc 

 beautiful and conspicuous even at a distance." i It 

 matters but little which particular flower, or whether 

 both were alluded to, in the injunction ; but it is 

 some satisfaction to know that there are two flowers 

 to be found at the spot, either of which would answer 

 all the purposes of an illustration. 



The monks in the middle ages were in the habit 

 of carefully tending the lily of the valley, in the 

 belief that it was the true " flower of the field," and 

 it has always been in the folklore of England an 

 emblem of purity, and connected in some way with 

 holiness, as, for instance, in the legend of St. Leonard, 

 who fought with a dragon for three days, and lost 

 much blood in the encounter, and wherev^er the blood 



1 "Gardener's Chronicle," July i, 1876, p. 7. 



