10 THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS, 
leaves, which were the emblem of her con¬ 
stant and death-daring purity. Anemones 
were but drops of dead Adonis’s blood. 
Rhododendron was the wicked nymph 
whose kiss was death. Narcissus still gazed 
upon his delicate beauty in the brook, when 
he had become a floweret; and so on: 
every flower had its story. 
It is also said that the Greeks understood 
the art of sending intelligence by a bouquet, 
and it is evident, from the old Dream-book 
of Artemidorus, that every flower of which 
their garlands were composed had a parti¬ 
cular signification. But we have no certain 
knowledge of their flower-language. 
Amongst the chivalrous nations of the 
North, flowers obtained a grander and 
bolder significance. Nations assumed for 
their badges on many a hardly-contested 
field, the tender darlings of the spring and 
summer ; and thus they became entwined 
with the records of the world, and linked 
with the memory of heroes. 
The lowly Broom, worn on the knightly 
helmet of Geoffrey of Anjou, gave name to 
the race of kings he sent to our island 
throne, the great Plantagenets. 
