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flowers and celebrated for the sweetness of its fruits. The Kushtha
forms one of the trees of heaven. In the Atharvaveda, it is stated
to flourish in the third heaven, where the ambrosia is to be found :
it possesses magical properties, will cure fevers, and is considered
as the first of medicinal plants. It is represented also as a great
friend and companion of Soma, the god of the ambrosia, and it
descends from the mountain Himavant as a deity of salvation.
L a d ’s L o v e .— See Southernwood.
L A D Y ’ S P L A N T S .—When the word “ lad y’’ occursin plant
names, it alludes in most cases to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, on
whom the monks and nuns of old lavished flowers in profusion.
All white flowers were regarded as typifying her purity and
sanctity, and were consecrated to her festivals. The finer flowers
were wrested from the Northern deities, Freyja and Bertha, and
from the classic Juno, Diana, and Venus, and laid upon the shrine
of Our Lady. In Puritan times, the name of Our Lady was in
many instances replaced by Venus, thus recurring to the ancient
nomenclature: for example: Our L ad y ’s Comb became Venus’s
Comb {Scandix Pecten Veneris) ; Galium verum is called Our L ad y ’s
Bedstraw, from its soft, puffy, flocculent stems, and its golden
flowers. The name may allude more particularly to the Virgin
Mary having given birth to her Son in a stable, with nothing but
wild flowers for her bedding. Clematis vitalba, commonly called
Traveller’s Joy, from the shade and shelter it affords to weary
wayfarers, is also called L ad y ’s Bower, from “ its aptness in
making arbours, bowers, and shadie covertures in gardens.”
Statice Armeria, the clustered Pink, which is called Thrift, from
the past participle of the verb to thrive, is, on account of its close
cushion-like growth, termed L ad y ’s Cushion. Alchemilla vulgaris is
named L ad y ’s Mantle from the shape and vandyked edge of the
leaf; and Campanula hybrida (from the resemblance of its expanded
flower, set on its elongated ovary, to an ancient metallic mirror on
its straight handle) is the L ad y ’s Looking-glass. Two plants with
soft inflated calyces [Anthyllis vulneraria and Digitalis purpurea) are
L ad y ’s Fingers. Neottia spiralis, with its flower-spikes rising above
each other like braided hair, is L ad y ’s T re sses; and the Maideii-
hair Fern is Our L ad y ’s Hair. Dodder [Cuscuta), from its stringlike
stems, is called L ad y ’s L a c e s ; and Digraphis arundinacea, from
the ribbon-like striped leaves, L ad y ’s Garters. In Wiltshire, Convolvulus
sepium is called L ad y ’s Nightcap. Cypripedium Calceolus,
from the shape of its flower, is called L ad y ’s Slippers; and Cardamine
pratensis, from the shape of its flowers, like little smocks hung
out to dry, is the L ad y ’s Smock, all silver white, of Shakspeare.
L ad y ’s Thimble is a name of the Blue or Hare Bell [Campanula
rotundifolia); and L ad y ’s Seal is now the Black Briony. Carduus
Marianus is the L ad y ’s Thistle, the blessed Milk Thistle, whose
green leaves have been spotted white ever since the milk of the
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Virgin fell upon it when she was nursing Jesus, and endowed it
with miraculous virtues.
L A R C H .—There has long been a superstitious belief that
the wood of the Larch-tree (Pinus Larix) is impenetrable by fire, and
a story is told by Vitruvius of a castle besieged by Caesar, which,
from being built largely of Larch timber, was found most difficult
to consume.' Evelyn calls the Larch a “ goodly tree, which is
of so strange a composition, that ’twill hardly burn ; whence the
Mantuan, E t robusta Larix igni impenetrabile lignum, for so Caesar
found it.” Tiberius constructed several bridges of this timber,
and the Forum of Augustus, at Rome, was built with it. Evelyn
tells of a certain ship found many years ago in the Numidian Sea,
twelve fathoms under water, which was chiefly built of Larch and
Cypress, so hardened as long to resist the fire or the sharpest tool.
Nor, he adds, “ was anything perished of it, though it had lain
above a thousand and four hundred years submerged.” A Manna
is obtained from the Larch, called in the South of France Manna
de Briangon ; it is very rare, and met with only in little drops that
adhere to the leaves. In the case of a forest fire, if Larches are
scorched to the pith, the inner part exudes a gum, called Orenburg
gum, which the mountaineers masticate in order to fasten their
teeth. Ben Jonson, in the ‘ Masque of Queens,’ speaks of the gum
or turpentine of the Larch as being used in witchcraft. A witch
answers her companion :—
“ Yes, I have brought (to help your vows)
Horned Poppy, Cypress-boughs,
The Fig-tree wild, that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the Larch-tree comes,
The basilisk’s blood and the viper’s skin :
And now our orgies let’s begin.*’
According to a Tyrolean tradition, the Seliges Fräulein, dressed in
white, repairs to an aged Larch beneath whose shelter she sings.
Lucan includes the “ gummy Larch ” among the articles
burned to drive away serpents. M. de Rialle, quoted in Mythothologie
des Plantes, relates that a group of seven Larches constituted
for the Ostiaks a sacred grove. Everyone passing was expecffed to
leave an arrow, and formerly it was customary to suspend skins
there, so that in course of time an immense quantity was accumulated.
As these offerings were frequently stolen by strangers, the
Ostiaks decided to fell one of the Larches and remove the stump
to some secret locality where they might pay their devotions
without fear of sacrilege. M. de Rialle found the same Larch
worship at Berezof: there a tree fifty feet high, and so old that
only its top bore foliage, received the homage of the Ostiaks, who
showed their piety by turning to good account its singular conformation
: about six feet from the ground the trunk of the tree
became divided into two limbs, which joining again a little higher
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