Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-01
FLOWERS AS EMBLEMs.
Lore, Historical and Romantic, Regard
ing the Various Floral Badges.

Lore, Historical and Romantic, Regard.
ing the Various Floral Badges.
Prom the London Standard.
Primrose day bids fair to be celebrated this
year with all its wonted enthusiasm. The prim-
uis cult Is safe to maintain much of its present
popularity. even should the whirligie Of time
raise up party leader whose fame will eclipse
that of Lord Beaconsheld.
This has not always been the fate of symbol
ical flowers "A good symbol," it was the opin-
ION OF Emerson, lis the best argument and is
missionary to persuade thousands. There il
no more welcome gift to men than . new SYM
DOL This may possibly account for the rise,
popularity, and persistence of floral symbols.
let 1t seems difficult to explain why Wales
snould have chosen the leek for its cognizance.
though the Cymric poets have good deal to
| say about the broom. The Scottish thistle is
more to the point. Yet the northern botanists
are by no means at one in assigning that
heraidic plant to any known species, or even in
agreeing that 1t is q carduus at all. The plant
with which Holyroodis decked on festive days
Is usually the cotton thistle, which is certainly
not wild plant in North Britain. The rose
mas, OF course. romantic tale to explain its
choice as the emblem of old England. though,
like the majority of such tales, this legend may
belong to the myths of the post hoe proctor hoe
| order.
| fLEUh-DE-LIs OF FRANCE
Is still less easy Of explanation. For, though
1t is conventionally regarded as lily, the heral
| die painters have so effectually disguised it
thatit is now mere matter of choice to say
what II ls As early as the year 1911 Givillim
lwho was in those days considered cunning
finder out of hidden things) regarded the de-
vice on the Bourbon flag as three toads," and
| 1t is affirmed that it in allusion to these
| supposed symbols of their country that the
D0Dnlar nickname of ~ xxoc I'm
slowed on the French people. Still more re-
Gently, owing to certain ornaments resembling
bees having been found in the tomb of Chill
derlc, father of Clovis, it has been thought that
perhaps these insects, and not lilies or toads,
are represented on the white flag. 1t
would certainly be difficulty for any one
| to explain why Florence adopted the .'giglio
banco," Prussia the lime, Saxony the mig
nonett, or Ireland the shamrock, unless, in
deed, we are to accept, without question, the
legand OF st. Patrick and his demonstration
through it of the mystery OF the Trinity. Nor
| Is 1t much easier for any one who is critical
anent popular myths to account for the white
lily being the badge of the Ghibellines, and the
| red OF the Guelphs, any more than it is explic-
| able while the Yorkists took the white rose and
| the Lancastrians the red, or why the heartsease
was the emblem of the violet crowned" city of
Athens. Again, why was Apollo supposed to
| love the laurel and the cornell cherry; Pluto,
! the cypress and the maiden hair-a moisture
| could not be very plentiful in his chosen realm
Luna, the dittany; Ceres, the daffodil; Jupi-
| ter, the oak; Minerva, the olive; Bacchus, the
| vine, and Venus the myrtle shade?
SANITY EMBLEMs.
Why, again, is the Canterbury-bell the
| flower Of st. Augustine? Why is the crocus
the emblem of st. Valentine-unless it hap
pens to appear about his festival time-the
| cardamne of the Virgin Mary, or the St.
| Johns wort of the Beloved Apostle? Mr.
CONNIE may perhaps hint at these flowers hav-
| ing been "tOtems," and possibly the flowers
| were actually favorites with those whose cog
| nizances they became after their death. or
were borne on their shields as heraldic EN-
blems during life. But still, the endless floral
badges of the Highland clans are left in the
| regions of airy myth, like the betony which
was apportioned to st. Ffraed as a symbol of
| the double share of grace with which he was
| endowed. or the lily of st. Thomas A'Beckett,
or the convallaria, which, according to a
neurological myth, sprang up from the blood
| OF the dragon which st. Leonard slew in a
wood standing on the site now occupied by the
| suburb Of Hastings bearing his name.
| FLOWERS ASSIGNED TO OTHER INDIVIDUALS.
| 1t is scarcely less puzzling to give reason
able explanation of why certain flowers are
assigned to, or have been appropriated by,
certain individuals. The Napoleonic violet is
| a case in point. The modest plant which once
| made all Paris fragrant on the Bonapartist fete
| day. was never an object of concern to the
Little Corporal" and only very credulous
| people now swallow the romantic legend of his
telling his adherents, when bapished to Elba,
| that he would "come back with the violets -
| This story was an invention of after times Nor
has any one, to our knowledge gone into the
| origin of the scarlet carnation as the chosen
| flower of the Stuarts. Jacobitism-the Jacob
| itism Of the pretender and of the gallant gen.
| tlemen who mounted the white cockade. and
lost their heads for their pains-is now a van
| ished faith. Yet to this day mysterious hands
| yearly deposit wreaths of carnations on the
tombs of Cardinal York and other members of
the hapless line of James III.
| LATER FLORAL EMBLEMs
are less difficult to explain. In truth, except
for the problem which individual tastes must
always remain, there is no great puzzle in the
matter. The old Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.
who, in spite of his military reputation and gen.
| erall drill-sergeantry, was wonderfully suffused
with the Teutonic sentimentality which per-
vaded Germany in his boyhood. was fond of
| the cornhower, and wherever he went, in his
later days at least, the whole country side bios
somed forth in blue in his honor. The old en-
perors devotion to the memory of his mother
| amounted to a 'cult." and one of his earliest
| recollections of her was that when she and her
| boys were fugitives from Berlin on the occa-
| ston of one of Napoleons invasons, she rested
for a moment by cornfield, and amused them
| by plucking the blue cornflowers and making
them wreaths and nosegays.
The present Kaiser is said to affect the vio-
| let, fancy which may clash with that of the
| Bonapartists, should the adherents of the
| democratic empire" again come to the front
| in France. A flower was, of course necessary
| to the Boulangists, and, with characteristic in
stinct for effect the partisans of the national
| and honest republic" have chosen the carna-
| ton. Nevertheless, the origin of the symbol
does not matter, except from historical point
| of view. The mysteries of this form of heraldry
| are generally beyond finding out, and not in
frequently are better left unexploded, if the re-
suit of antiquarian search is as depressing as
that which affirms that the word shamrock is
derived from the Arabic Shamrock. a club or
shellelah, and that this weapon is, in truth, the
| true badge of the Hibernian race.