Orange-blossom. 
(CHASTITY.) 
O RANGE-BLOSSOM is generally deemed typical of chas¬ 
tity, because of it being customary for brides to wear 
a wreath of it on their wedding-day. The practice, though 
still retained in some countries, is not so fashionable here as 
formerly ; nevertheless, bridal bonnets frequently display an 
artificial spray of these flowers. In his “ Ode to Memory,” 
Tennyson alludes to the custom of using these blossoms at 
nuptials thus : 
“ Like a bride of old, 
In triumph led, 
With music and sweet showers 
Of festal flowers, 
Unto the dwelling she must sway.” 
The wax-hued blossoms of the syringa are often mistaken 
and used in this country for those of “ the starry orange-tree ” 
—a tree which, from the fact of its being one of those rare 
productions of nature, bearing at the same time foliage, flowers, 
and fruit, has been made the emblem of generosity. Mason’s 
poem of the “ English Garden ” introduces the favourite thus 
prodigally adorned: 
“Where the citron sweet 
And fragrant orange, rich in fruit and flowers, 
Might hang their silver stars, their golden globes, 
On the same odorous stem.” 
Moore, in his sweet story of “ Paradise and the Peri,” makes 
a somewhat similar allusion, but draws a very different moral 
from the combination : 
“Just then, beneath some orange-trees, 
Whose fruit and blossoms in the breeze 
Were wantoning together, free, 
Like age at play with infancy.” 
