TREE MYTnS. 45 



horse- chestnuts are nearly akin, and that they 

 helong to the same genus. Botanically, they 

 could hardly be further apart, for they belong 

 to different natural orders. 



Our best Western rendering of Eastern 

 "palms" are the white silky catkins of the Goat- 

 Willow or Saugh ; and there is probably not 

 a country child when gathering these on the 

 Sunday next before Easter, but thinks they are 

 the self-same palms which those other children 

 bore before Our Saviour as he walked into Jeru- 

 salem. The poisonous properties of the foliage 

 of the Yew are well known, though this fact 

 does not extend to the viscid scarlet berries, as 

 is often supposed, and they may be eaten with- 

 out the least harm. The Mistletoe growing 

 upon the oak is generally treasured in youthful 

 minds as a school-book fact, but in nature it is 

 of the rarest occurrence. And, unless the plant 

 has strangely altered its habitat since the time of 

 the Druids, it is hardly probable that the priests 

 stripped it from the trees of their sacred groves 

 in any great quantity. 



The legend of the " Glastonbury Thorn " is 

 connected with a kind of tree not yet mentioned. 

 It is told how Joseph of Arimathsea, coming to 



