6o FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



the Madonna. These little ivory statuettes are 

 usually very sweet in type and often exquisite in 

 workmanship. The Child is held on the left 

 arm, and the right hand holds a large single lily 

 cup, a pear-like fruit, or, more generally, a natural 

 stalk of lilies with leaves and flowers. Always 

 when placed beside the Virgin, or in her hand, the 

 lily is the symbol of her purity, and a lily stand- 

 ing alone, as does the beautiful stem in pietra- 

 dura work, which decorates the little oratory of 

 ' Our Lady of the Annunciation ' in the Church 

 of the Santissima Annunziata of Florence, is the 

 emblem of the Madonna herself, the ' Lilium 

 inter Spinas.' 



Modern Biblical commentators are agreed that 

 the ' lily of the valleys ' of the Song of Solomon 

 is not the white lily of Europe but the scarlet 

 anemone. The lilium candidum appears never 

 to have grown in Syria. In the late spring and 

 early summer, however, the anemones grow 

 thickly in every grassy patch around Jerusalem 

 and throughout Palestine. That the flower men- 

 tioned is red seems indicated by the comparison 

 between it and the lips of the ' Beloved,' and the 

 anemone, which responds so readily to the sun, 



