456 FREAKS OF PLANT LIFE. 



James VI., and Carduus marianus is almost the only 

 species that would naturally suggest it, or that really 

 deserves it, but I suspect that the reason for the 

 preference of this species as the emblem was the fact 

 of its dedication to the mother of Our Saviour, a 

 drop of whose milk having fallen on the leaves, 1 

 imprinted the accident in those white veins which so 

 remarkably distinguished them. The period at which 

 the thistle was emblazoned was rife in those religious 

 associations and adoptions." 3 In favour of this view 

 an argument may be derived from the fact of the 

 "Blessed thistle" having been cultivated in the neigh- 

 bourhood of castles in Scotland, about whose ruins 

 it is now found. 3 



The simple daisy, with all its simplicity, is very 

 nearly a royal flower. It was once of great renown, 

 and was called in England " Herb Margaret," or 

 day's eye, but in France it was Marguerite, a name it 

 still bears. It was the device of the unfortunate 

 Margaret of Anjou, and when this queen was in 



1 " The purple-flowered Lady's Thistle, the leaves of which 

 are beautifully diversified with numerous white spots like drops 

 of milk, is vulgarly thought to have been originally marked by 

 the falling of some drops of the Virgin Mary's milk on it, 

 whence, no doubt, its name Lady's — i.e., Our Lady's Thistle. 

 — Brand's " Popular Antiquities," i., p. 48. 



2 Johnston's " Botany of the Eastern Borders," p. 131. 



3 Professor Balfour, "The Bass Rock" (1848), p. 419. 



