It has been suggested that the coiling stem is a descendent from Celtic design, most famously interpreted in Opus Anglicanum as the 'tree of Jesse'. It seems plausible that after the Reformation of the Church, professional embroiderers formerly providing ecclesiastical commissions should apply their designs, such as the fruiting vine, to secular uses. Similarly the appropriation of church vestments for domestic use may have helped to widen the popularity of formerly religious motifs. The colors are unusually vivid and in places two different colored threads have been twisted together to give an intermediate shade. Various animals, including snakes, are included among the flowers.
Various animals appear mong the flowers, some of which are the animal representations of the senses.
For example, the dog represents smell, the stag, hearing, the boar, lust and the rather strange human-like monkey eating an apple is taste. There are also heraldic beasts such as the lion and leopard and at the lower right, a wyvern, traditional symbol of cruelty. The pomegranite bursting open with an abundance of seeds probably represents fertility. These symbols would originally have been readily understood by the educated, but by the end of the century they had lost much of their significance and become formalized motifs. Coif with forehead cloth, early 17th century.