282 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 280. 



the world assembled at Chicago the possibilities of his art 

 in a work which of its kind has never been equaled in 

 beauty or convenience. Last year the University at Cam- 

 bridge bestowed an honorary degree upon an architect, in 

 whose person art was thus honored ; this year it is a land- 

 scape-gardener who is distinguished by two venerable seats 

 of learning. These facts are of the highest significance, 

 as they show more clearly than anything that has occurred 

 before the position which art is assuming in this country 

 and the growing appreciation in which artists are held here. 

 Harvard further honored herself in placing upon her roll 

 of honorary Masters of Arts the name of Horatio Hollis 

 Hunnewell, in recognition of his attainments in horticul- 

 ture, which he has practiced with singular success for more 

 than half a century, and which he has advanced by his own 

 knowledge and example, and by his generous and enlight- 

 ened support of every effort which has been undertaken in 

 his time in this country to increase the knowledge of plants 

 and the love of cultivating them. 



The Use of Flowers in Ceremonies. 



AN interesting article contributed to the Nineteenth Century, 

 some years ago, by Mr. A. Lambert, gave us a learned 

 summary of the extended use of flowers for solemn festivals, 

 with many quotations from classic writers and historians, 

 showing the high appreciation in which they were held by the 

 ancients. From the earliest ages to the present time, among 

 the most primitive people, as well as the most cultivated, 

 flowers have been used in all great ceremonies as an important 

 factor in their splendors. The barbarous Polynesian propi- 

 tiates with them his cruel god and wreathes his victim for the 

 sacrifice with their lovely forms, strewing the ground about 

 his dead with petals and green leaves, while all travelers tell of 

 the habit of the natives of the Pacific islands of adorning them- 

 selves with garlands on all important occasions. In India 

 Brahma is represented as springing from a Lotus-flower, and 

 the temples are heavy with the perfume of Jessamine and 

 other fragrant blossoms. The slirines and steps leading to the 

 temples of the gods are kept strewn by the priests with the 

 Lotus, daily renewed ; and in an ancient Cinghalese chronicle 

 it is recorded that the regulations of a certain temple in the 

 thirteenth century prescribed " every day an offering of one 

 hundred thousand blossoms, and each day a different kind of 

 flower." In one part of the Hindoo marriage-rite the officiat- 

 ing priest binds together the hands of the bride and groom 

 with a garland of flowers, which is removed by the maiden's 

 father during the recital of the holiest verse of the Vedas. At 

 their burial services the Hindoos use flowers in great profu- 

 sion, burying their children's bodies decked with them, and 

 ornamenting the funeral pyre of adults with wreaths and scat- 

 tered blossoms. Flowers are offered for the ten days succeed- 

 ing the burning of bodies on a small altar at the door of the 

 dead man's home, and the final ceremony of all is the journey 

 to the burial ground of all the near kinsmen of the departed 

 with vessels filled with flowers and roots. Wherever Bud- 

 dhism prevails, in China, Japan, Tartary, Thibet and India, and 

 throughout the eastern archipelago, floral offerings are every- 

 where met with — at shrines, in temples and on tombs. The 

 Persian love of flowers is well known, and nowhere is there 

 more sentiment expressed for the beauty of a rare blossom 

 than in that romantic land of the Bulbul and the Rose. 



Not alone in the land of Brahma, but in Egypt, was the Lotus 

 sacred to the gods. There, too, the god of day was seen rising 

 from its cup-like flower, and whenever an Egyptian went to 

 worship it was with the Lotus-flower in his hand, sacred to his 

 immortal deities. They made oblations of bouquets of pre- 

 scribed form of this flower, and also offerings ot single blos- 

 soms of different kinds upon the altars of Ra. In the papyri 

 in the British Museum are many illustrations representing 

 these rites, the colors of the flowers still beautifully preserved, 

 as if painted yesterday. Here we see garlands laid upon the 

 altars, and the statues wreathed with them in splendid profu- 

 sion. The Helichrysos was in great request for these wreaths, 

 both for its unfading character and its brilliant golden hue. At 

 the feasts held in honor of the dead the guests were decked 

 with flowers, and offerings of them were continually made in 

 the buildings where mummies were kept before they were 

 entombed. In military triumphs the returning armies were 

 met at each great town by a procession of priests and leading 

 citizens, bearing garlands and palm-branches, to welcome 

 their return. 



The wreaths and chaplets worn for ornament among the 



Egyptians were not only the favorite Lotus, but also the Chrys- 

 anthemum, the Anemone, the Convolvulus, Colisebay and 

 Acacia. Plutarch tells us tliat when the King of Sparta visited 

 Egypt he was so pleased with the wreaths of papyrus sent him 

 by the king that he took some of them back with him. At 

 leasts each guest was presented with a Lotus, which he held 

 in his hand throughout the meal. Necklaces of flowers were 

 also furnished, and a garland also worn upon the head, with a 

 single Lotus bud or flower hanging down in the middle of the 

 forehead. Flowers adorned the walls and the great jars about 

 the room, servants constantly renewing the blossoms of the 

 guests as they faded — a refinement of attention to which we 

 have not yet attained at our dinners. Again, the bowl was 

 wreathed with flowers, and a vase of Lotus-blossoms was 

 placed upon a stand, or was presented to the master of the 

 house by an attendant. 



In our own continent the Aztecs rejoiced in floral decora- 

 tions, offering them solemnly to their gods in such quantities 

 that the effect was shown in the splendid gardens in which 

 Mexico abounded. Flowers were presented by them on all 

 ceremonious occasions to those they delighted to honor, to 

 the king, to ambassadors, to people of rank ; and they had a 

 Goddess of Flowers, whose feast was annually celebrated by 

 a flower-crowned and wreathed procession. 



If among the Jews flowers were little used in sacrifice, ex- 

 cept to wreathe the horns of the victim, we still note that the 

 Olive and the Palm were used on solemn occasions in times of 

 public rejoicing. Thus, Judith crowned herself with Lilies to 

 do honor to Holofernes. 



Among the Greeks and Romans the use of flowers was al- 

 most universal, and there are countless passages from their 

 poets where they are forever embalmed in fitting verse. Par- 

 ticular flowers were dedicated to different deities. The Nar- 

 cissus was the flower of the mighty goddesses, the Poppy was 

 sacred to Ceres, the Anemone to Venus, the Lily to Juno, the 

 Myrde to Diana. Upon the altars Laurel was burned in the 

 earliest times, and a chaplet of Violets was a holy offering. 

 The couch on which the dead lay was strewn with blossoms, 

 and the grave constantly adorned with wreaths. Even Cara- 

 calla laid garlands of flowers upon the tomb of Achilles when 

 he visited it, and Ovid, when an exile, wrote to his wife : " Per- 

 form the funeral rites for me when I am dead and offer chap- 

 lets wet with your tears." 



Chaplets were worn at meals among both Greeks and Ro- 

 mans, the Rose being esteemed then, as now, the queen of 

 flowers. Aristophanes gives us a picture of the tipsy Alci- 

 biades, staggering about, crowned with ivy and violets, his 

 head bound with many fillets. So litfle did wreaths accord 

 with a sobriety of character that at one time the Romans visited 

 with severe punishment whoever appeared with one in public. 

 The Roman bridal wreath was generally of Verbena plucked by 

 the bride ; the bridegroom also was crowned with flowers and 

 the marriage-bed wreadied with garlands. But the laws of 

 Rome were strenuous about the unlawful use of garlands, and 

 a certain banker at the time of the second Punic War was im- 

 prisoned by order of the Senate for sixteen years for looking 

 down from the balcony of a house with a wreath of Roses 

 upon his head. Publius Munatius was put in chains for hav- 

 ing crowned himself with flowers taken from the statue of 

 Marsyas, and the tribunes refused to interfere in his behalf. 



The Christians continued the custom of the Romans, and 

 the stately ceremonial of the Latin Church, until this day, is 

 always emphasized with floral decorations. Though for a time 

 Puritan influence banished them from New England churches, 

 the natural love of these beaudful adornments has resumed 

 full sway, and no function is now complete without their per- 

 fumed presence. 



There is no ceremony at which they are inappropriate. They 

 come felicitously with congratulations for a birth, they deco- 

 rate the debutante, and glow in the button-hole of the college 

 graduate. They crown, with fitting sweetness, the brow of the 

 bride ; they are present at our altars, our feasts, and at our 

 triumphs as of yore, and are the last sad tokens of affecdon 

 that follow us to our long home, and brighten the sod under 

 which we lie in our final sleep, thus attending us from the cra- 

 dle to the tomb with their ever-valued ministrations. 



1 



Old trees in their living state are the only things that money 

 cannot command. Rivers leave their beds, run into cities and 

 traverse mountains for it ; obelisks and arches, palaces and 

 temples, amphitheatres and pyramids rise up like exhalations 

 at its bidding ; even the free spirit of man, the only thing 

 great on earth, crouches and cowers in its presence. It passes 

 away and vanishes before venerable trees. 



— Walter Savage Landor. 



