52 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



on each side a cherub symbolising the winds. In the 

 centre of the garden is the famous Vegetable Lamb, 

 supposed to be half animal and half plant. This curious 

 myth of the Middle Ages lingered on, and was actually 

 discussed as a matter of faith by scientific men towards 

 the end of the eighteenth century. The Borametz, or 

 Scythian Lamb, or Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, as 

 described by travellers, appears in both the frontispieces 

 of Parkinson's books. When studying the flower books 

 at the South Kensington Museum, I felt curious 

 about this tradition, which the Church of the Middle 

 Ages took up, making it a matter of faith that the 

 Vegetable Lamb grew in Paradise and was in some 

 mysterious way typical of the Christian Lamb. My brain 

 was soon cleared by finding at the Museum a book 

 written by Mr. Henry Lee, and published as late as 1887, 

 giving an excellent account of the whole tradition. This 

 book, called ' The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary/ contains 

 several pictures, reproduced from old books, of the lamb. 

 Some represent it growing, as Parkinson has it, on a stem, 

 from which it was supposed to eat the grass as far as it 

 could reach and then die. Another picture is of a tree 

 with large cocoons, which burst open and display a lamb. 

 The belief seems to have been that the lamb was at the 

 same time both a true animal and a living plant. Mr. Lee 

 carefully goes through the whole tradition, quoting all 

 the known sources from which it arose. According to 

 him, about the middle of the seventeenth century very 

 little belief in the story of the Scythian Lamb remained 

 among men of letters, although it continued to be a subject 

 of discussion and research for at least a hundred and 

 fifty years later. He sums up his explanation with the 

 following sentence : * Tracing the growth and transition 

 of this story of the lamb-plant from a truthful rumour of 

 a curious fact into a detailed history of an absurd fiction, 



