310 MORE POT-POURRI 



the writer gives full credit, as is due, to the monks, and 

 says : ' To the Benedictines and Cistercians the first 

 great agriculturists of Europe and the first great gar- 

 deners, the true predecessors of the Hendersons and 

 Veitches of our own day we are indebted for many of 

 the well -loved flowers that will always keep their places, 

 in spite of their gayer, but less permanent, modern 

 rivals. The Wallflower, that "scents the dewy air" 

 about the ruined arches of its convent ; the scarlet 

 Anemone, that flowers about Easter -tide, and is called 

 in Palestine the blood -drops of Christ ; the blossoming 

 Almond tree, one of the symbols of the Virgin, and the 

 Marigold that received her name, are but a few of the 

 old friends, brought long ago from Syria by some pil- 

 grim monk, and spread from his garden over the whole 

 of Europe. ... In the cloistered garden, too, the 

 monk was wont to meditate on the marvels of the plants 

 that surrounded him, and to find all manner of mys- 

 terious emblems in their marks and tracings. Many 

 displayed the true figure of the Cross. It might be 

 seen in the centre of the red poppy; and there was a 

 "Zucca" (fig) at Rome, in the garden of the Cistercian 

 Convent of Santa Potentiana, the fruit of which, when 

 cut through, showed a green cross inlaid on the white 

 pulp, and having at its angles five seeds, representing 

 the five wounds. . . . The Banana, in the Canaries, 

 is never cut with a knife, because it also exhibits a rep- 

 resentation of the Crucifixion, just as the Fern root 

 shows an Oak tree.' But the fame of the greatest of all 

 such marvels arrived at Rome in the year 1609, when 

 Bosio describes as maraviglioso fiore the Passion Flower 

 of the New World. The first to describe the Passion 

 Flower in England was our own Master Parkinson, who 

 said that it should be assigned^ to that ' bright Occidental 

 star, Queen Elizabeth, and be named, in memory of her, 



