THROUGH THE YEAR IN A GARDEN 195 



were wont to tell how Chiron the Centaur dis- 

 covered its dread powers by dropping upon 

 his hoof an arrow that had been dipped in the 

 juice of the plant, his death accompanying 

 his discovery. They believed too that Monks- 

 hood was sown in the Garden of Hecate by 

 Cerberus, the three-headed monster who 

 guarded the Place of Shadows. But June's 

 garden will find within its borders flowers of 

 less sorrowful an ancestry — Campanula (Ve- 

 nus's Looking-glass), Iris (Lily of France), 

 Honeysuckle, Hollyhock, Jasmine (Flower O' 

 Love of the Arabs) , the Rose, Pyrethrum, Sal- 

 piglossis, Schizanthus, Sedimi, Spirea, Sweet 

 Alyssimi, Sweet Peas, Veronica, the Violet 

 (sacred to Venus when the gods were still on 

 Olympus) and the Larkspur, though that 

 beautiful plant has almost as sorrowful a his- 

 tory as the Aconite, for was it not this flower, 

 whose petals bore marks forming the letters 

 A I A, signifying Ajax, terror of the Trojans, 

 as Delphimum Ajacis on which was spilled the 

 blood of this hero as he fell bleeding upon the 

 earth? 



There are many flower lovers who remain 

 ignorant of the names of the plants which claim 



