The Folk-lore of Plants 247 



pina ; to Diana all the wild flowers that modern students 

 love those miracles of nature, the triumph of the ages, 

 that fill the world unseen with color and perfume, and 

 our hearts with startled but appreciative wonder. What 

 must have been the vision of those old-time men who saw 

 the personification of pure beauty, clear and cold as the 

 silver circlet of the rising moon, a maiden lithe, touching 

 with trackless footsteps the otherwise untrodden wild, 

 where by murmuring stream the flowers of the woodland 

 opened unabashed their gentle eyes of glorious delicacy 

 and beauty. Diana and the wild flowers undisturbed; 

 fairest picture in the gallery of the human spirit ! 



I have already mentioned the flowers of the Orient, I 

 may refer again to Buddha and his lotus, the lotus older 

 than Buddha, old as the monumental valley of the im- 

 memorial Nile, where thousands of years ere Buddha sat 

 and dreamed for India, Egyptian priests carried the 

 rose-tinted water-lily in their processions that signified 

 the march of man beyond the tomb. Who shall tell the 

 dreamy legends of the lotus, languid, floating on the 

 silent waters ; its fruit could make the souls of those who 

 ate it more blessed than the care-free gods. Buddha in 

 terrestrial birth rose from the lotus bloom, the beauty 

 of the lily. 



The asclepias, which still lingers in our pharmacopeia 

 and blooms each recurring autumn by Iowa streams, has 

 a history stranger still. Here is the tree of life that 

 grew in paradise, untouched of men. Its milky juice 

 brings immortality; itself can never fade. The vedas 

 call it soma and sing its praise : 



