158 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



beautiful shape of its clustering blossoms are all features 

 which justify us in our own appreciation and in appealing 

 to that of others who may not yet have made an ac- 

 quaintance with its modest beauties. 



The lower leaves of the Lady's mantle are much 

 larger than any of those which our limited space has allowed 

 us to show, being borne on long stalks, fairly circular 

 in general outline, but having their margins cut into 

 seven or nine broad but shallow lobes ; the upper leaves 

 are small, and either stalkless or on short stems, and 

 all are acutely notched and toothed. The leaf -like stipules 

 embracing the stem are a noticeable feature. The flowers 

 are small, numerous, and yellowish-green in colour, grouped 

 in clusters at the ends of the freely branching flower- 

 stems. The petals are wanting, the calyx eight-cleft, the 

 four outer and alternating segments being smaller than 

 the others. The stamens are four in number. The whole 

 plant is about a foot in height, and generally more or less 

 clothed with soft hairs. 



The plant is the Lady's mantle, not the ladies'- 

 mantle; the point may not appear important, and we 

 find it sometimes given one way and sometimes another ; 

 but the first is the true form, and bears record of its 

 association in medieval times with the Virgin Mary. 

 Other parallel examples are the thrift or Lady's cushion, 

 the dodder or Lady's laces, the Solomon's seal or Lady's 

 seal, the quaking grass or Lady's hair, and several others 

 that we need not stay to particularise. It is in Sweden, 

 too, the Lady's cape, in Germany the Frauenmantel . 

 In France an entirely new idea is introduced, the form 

 of the spreading root-leaves having suggested the name 

 pied-de-lion. It was also called in mediaeval Latin the 



