104 
and blossoms. (Fig. 2.) And, again, in a particularly large form 
on the wall of the sacristy, with, in some instances, snails depicted 
crawling over them. 
The single blossoms of the Buttercup in the vaulting show* 
apparently, the greenish yellow sepals behind the brighter portion 
of the flowers. 
One other herbaceous plant whose foliage inspired the artist 
is the Columbine, a well-known flower all over Europe, and one 
often mentioned by the older poets while describing floral customs 
long since discontinued. 
The leaves sculptured on one of the spandrels of St. 
Fridiswide shrine at Oxford is probably almost the only repre¬ 
sentation of it in stone at this early date. 
As already stated, the larger row of ornaments on the 
Berkeley door has been a source of doubt to many observers. 
It has often been described as representing the fossil 
Ammonite, one kind of which is found in the neighbourhood of 
Bristol. It will be found, however, that a marked character 
of ail the species of Ammonites is a series of bars at regular 
intervals across the coils, and these ornaments have no such bars. 
The artist who made a water-colour sketch of the doorway 
in 1824 for the Braikenridge collection of local drawings, now 
preserved in the Bristol Art Gallery, evidently recognised the 
importance of the ornament and gave an enlarged drawing, which 
materially helps one to recognise in it the fruit of a small plant 
with yellow flowers of the clover tribe—Meaicago or Medick. 
Its trefoil-shaped leaves are often met with in carvings of 
the period, but in this instance the fruit only is chosen, which 
consists of a long pod coiled round like the spring of a watch, 
and having on its outer edge a narrow, crinkly border. All the 
medicagos that grow in England have these coiled fruits, but their 
fringe, or border, consists of prickles, and the pod is not so 
contracted between the seeds, but there is a common species of 
the Mediterranean, Medicago orbicularis , whose fruit closely 
corresponds with this carving and is undoubtedly the source of 
inspiration to the artist. He was a clever workman, and put 
great skill into the execution, and, as in the case of some of 
his other carvings, was not afraid of heroic size. 
One of the two remaining ornaments of this period is the 
Four-leaved Flower composed of four simple leaves or petals 
arranged to form a square-shaped blossom. It seems to be a 
simple geometric figure suggested by the common floral arrange¬ 
ment of the large family of cruciform plants, and was easily 
adapted to be placed at regular intervals, or closelv united in 
a hollow moulding, or for more general use as a cornice to form 
a light and graceful finish. 
In this form it can be seen on the verge of a monumental 
slab. (Fig'. 2.). 
When these four-leaved ornaments were closelv united in 
