492 
SACRED AND CLASSICAL PLANTING. 
so exceedingly beautiful in the autumn months, 
when the general desolation of Nature takes 
place, that no shrubbery should be without them. 
The golden festoonery of the Laburnum 
was also about the classic villas and uplands, 
not " unprolitably gay," as might be supposed ; 
for according co Theocritus and Plinj r , goats 
were fed with its shoots, which had the effect 
of augmenting the milk of that animal. 
As a beautiful and striking contrast to the 
last-mentioned plant, there was the Judas- 
tree (C'ercis siliquastrum), which is associated 
with one of the darkest pages of the world's 
history — the betrayal of our Saviour ; for, 
no sooner had this act been accomplished, than 
Judas went out and hanged himself on a tree, 
which by common consent is thought to have 
been one of this species. Judea abounds with 
it in a wild state ; and what is more to our 
present purpose, it is found around Rome and 
throughout Greece. I do not know whether 
the tree, in the eyes of Christians, is looked 
upon as degraded by the act of the arch-dis- 
sembler referred to ; but certainly it is not 
cultivated so extensively as its beautiful pur- 
plish pink flowers and handsome leaves would 
lead one to expect. 
Next is tire Rose. A good deal of ingenuity 
has been exercised to show that this queen of 
the garden was wholly unknown to the ancient 
Greeks ; but the endeavour to diminish the 
empire of this universal favourite has proved 
entirely unsuccessful. Indeed, the attempt 
was made for the purpose of destroying the 
claims of certain fragments of the poet of Teos 
to be considered genuine ; but whether Ana- 
creon wrote those pieces or not, the identity 
of the rose is broadly apparent in the writings 
of Herodotus, who notices the rose with sixty 
leaves, as it flourished in the gardens of Midas, 
at the foot of the snowy Bermios ; in the 
poems of Stersichoros, who wrote 556 years 
before Christ ; and in those of old Homer him- 
self, whose writings may be dated perhaps a 
thousand years before the birth of our Saviour. 
This last author speaks of oils rendered fra- 
grant by the perfume of the rose, and com- 
pares the fingers of the morning to its fragrant 
petals. This was the flower to perfect whose 
birth gods and goddesses strove in happy con- 
cert ; it was bathed by Bacchus in nectar ; 
Aurora caused her dews to lie thick upon it, 
freshening its roots ; whilst Apollo's beams 
shone with warmth. Then with a diadem of 
expanding bloom, Flora's self appeared, crown- 
ing its stem, Vertumnus following hard with 
perfume from the blessed vale of Tempe, which 
fragrance it still retains, though lost somewhat 
by time. It would indeed have been a pity 
to have had this exquisitely prepared plant 
destroyed by one dash of the controveisialists' 
pen ! The Athenians had extensive planta- 
tions of this shrub ; and many were the de- 
vices they resorted to in order to preserve the 
flower. One of the modes adopted was to cut 
off the top of a reed, splitting it down a little 
way, and inclosing a number of rose-buds in 
the hollow, which being bound over with pa- 
pyrus, prevented their odour from escaping. 
The ancients were acquainted with the com- 
mon damask, the white, and the moss-rose. 
Pliny refers to Pangasus, a mountain of Thrace, 
as the native habitat of the rose ; and according 
to Chandler, the white variety is at present 
cultivated in Attica. The Greeks and the 
Romans had an idea that the fragrance of the 
rose was greatly augmented by planting garlic 
beside its roots, an opinion which will gain but 
few adherents in the present day. However, 
they succeeded in growing it to their satisfac- 
tion ; and its odour, " sweeter than Cytherea's 
breath," has been attested by many of the great 
names of antiquity. In Greece, the rose season 
commences in April, and with the view of 
getting the plants to bloom in February, they 
watered them twice or thrice a day with warm 
water. 
One of the favourite harbingers of spring, 
both with the Greeks and the Romans, was 
the Hawthorn {Cratcegus Oxijacantha). Well 
was it regarded with them as the emblem of 
hope, for it would be impossible to select a 
plant whose flowers would give a more lovely 
indication of the opening year. Druids, 
Celts, Saxons, Pagans, and Christians, have 
followed in adopting this tree as the living and 
beautiful type of a May-morn ; and however 
seldom wreaths of it may be employed now-a- 
days in decking our rural fair ones, or in gar- 
landing the may-pole, it will continue to be 
regarded as the queen of all our larger shrub 
flowers. The fruit of this genus is really 
brilliant ; and any one in walking over the 
arboretum of the Horticultural Society at 
Chiswiek, in October and November, will find 
the bushes arrayed in all the glitter of plen- 
teous autumn. Steps should be taken by those 
who have estates and lands in the country to 
have the more beautiful varieties transferred 
to rural districts. As road-side trees, no genus 
can be compared with them. Greek girls 
carried the flowers in wedding processions, 
laying them on the altar of Hymen. 
The Honeysuckle was one of those shrubs 
planted on lawns in front of the houses through- 
out Greece ; and, in particular, it was selected 
to clamber around the pomegranate trees, 
which were usually placed on elevated spots ; 
so that from the mass of odoriferous shrubs 
thus exposed to the winds, the evening and 
morning breezes wafted clouds of fragrance 
into the apartments of the villa. From the 
foot of the honeysuckle peeped the violet and 
other humble though sweet flowers. One of 
