F ORGET-ME-NOT. 
“Hope’s gentle gem, the sweet forget-me-not.” 
Coleridge. 
“The sweet forget-me-nots that grow for happy lovers.” 
Tennyson. 
A BEAUTIFUL little flower, whose name enfolds no 
hieroglyphic secret, but whose beloved face of heavenly 
blue is suggestive of its sorrowful meaning, is the Forget-me- 
not. The German legend that accounts for the poetical appel¬ 
lation by which this tiny floral pet is known, runs thus: “A 
knight and his betrothed were walking on the banks of the 
Danube, when the lady espied a bunch of the Myosotrispalus- 
tris (as this blossom is termed by Linnaeus) floating away 
down the stream ; and, expressing a wish to possess it, with 
chivalrous promptitude the mail-clad gallant plunged into the 
river and grasped the flower; but, alas! encumbered by the 
weight of his armour, he was unable to remount the slippery 
bank. Finding himself, despite all his exertions, sinking fast 
beneath the waters, with a last effort he flung the blossoms 
ashore to his agonized mistress, crying, ere he sank for ever, 
‘ Forget me not! ’ ” 
With such a romantic tragedy attached to it, it is not to be 
wondered at that this little flower should have been inundated 
with poetical tributes. Gothe, in one of his melodious lyrics 
—the spirit of which Lord Francis Gower has well caught and 
translated into English—addresses the forget-me-not as 
“ Still the loveliest flower, 
The fairest of the fair • 
Of ail that deck my lady’s bower, 
Or bind her floating hair.” 
This flower recalls to mind another event connected with the 
daysof chivalry, otherwise than the melancholy one fromwhichit 
