Introduction. 
21 
was probably, as the authoress of “ Flora Domestica ” suggests, 
“ the general power of sympathy which caused them to be 
connected with some of the earliest events that history records. 
The mythologies of all nations are full of them ; and in all 
times they have been associated with the soldiery, the govern¬ 
ments, and the arts. Thus the patriot was crowned with Oak; 
the hero and the poet with Bay; and beauty with the Myrtle. 
Peace had her Olive ; Bacchus his Ivy ; and whole groves of 
oak-trees were thought to send out oracular voices in the winds. 
One of the most pleasing parts of state splendour has been 
associated with flowers. . . It was this that brought the gentle 
family of Roses into such unnatural broils in the civil wars ; 
and still the united countries of Great Britain have each a 
floral emblem: Scotland has its Thistle, Ireland its Shamrock, 
and England the Rose. France, under the Bourbons, had the 
golden Lily.” Our different festivals have each their own pecu¬ 
liar plant to be used in their celebration. At Easter, the Willow 
as a substitute for the Palm ; at Christmas, the Holly and 
Mistletoe ; and, on May-day, the Hawthorn or May-bush. 
Notwithstanding all that has happened, all that has been 
said upon the subject, some people still refuse credence to the 
influence of flowers—even deeming frivolous or meaningless 
these florigraphical tokens which have been a source of joyous 
feelings and sublime hopes to thousands. 
In his beautiful philosophical work on the “Nature and 
Phenomena of Life,” Leo Grindon thus emphatically expresses 
his opinion as to the truthfulness of the emotions engendered 
in the human mind by this unspoken language : “The presig¬ 
nificance of mental and moral qualities by plants is fully as 
extensive as that of organic structure and configuration. This 
arises, of course, from the correspondence which subsists between 
the material and the spiritual world. The former, as the ex¬ 
ternal image of the latter, must needs prefigure it. The box- 
tree represents stoicism ; the camomile plant patience in adver¬ 
sity; the ash and mulberry prefigure prudence; the nettle is a 
presage of spitefulness; trees like the hermandia, that make a 
great display of foliage, but produce no fruit of any value, give 
note of empty and pretentious boasters. It was not from their 
mere commercial value that the dowry of a Greek bride was 
paid in olive plants, any more that it is from mere fancy tha- 
