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SN O W D R O P .—The Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) was formerly
held sacred to virgins, and this may account for its being
so generally found in the orchards attached to convents and old
monastic buildings.
“ A flow’r that first in this sweet garden smiled,
To virgins sacred, and the Snowdrop styled.”— Tickell.
It is also dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and a monkish tradition
asserts that it blooms on the second of February, or Candlemas
Day, the day kept in celebration as that on which the holy Virgin
took the child Jesus to the Jewish Temple and there presented an
offering. Hence the flower is called the Fair Maid of February ;
as on the Day of the Purification of the Virgin Mary her image used
to be removed from the altar, and Snowdrops strewed over the
vacant place. The legendary account of the fiower’s creation is
as follows :—“ An angel went to console E v e ’when mourning over
the barren earth, when no fiowers in Eden grew, and the driving
snow was falling to form a pall for earth’s untimeous funeral after
the fall of man ; the angel, catching as he spoke a fiake of falling
snow, breathed on it, and jjade it take a form, and bud and blow.
Ere the fiake reached the earth E v e smiled upon the beauteous
plant, and prized it more than all the other fiowers in Paradise,
for the angel said to h e r :—
“ ‘ This is an earnest, Eve, to thee,
That sun and summer soon shall be.’ ”
The angel’s mission being ended, away up to heaven he fiew ; but
where on earth he stood, a ring of Snowdrops formed a posey.” -----
An old name for the plant was the Winter Gillifiower. Dr. Prior
thinks that the name Snowdrop was derived from the German
Schneetropfen, and that the “ drop ” does not refer to snow, but to
the long pendants, or drops, worn by the ladies in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, both as earrings and hangings to their
brooches, and which we see represented so often by Dutch and
Italian painters of that period. In some parts of England it is
considered by the peasantry unlucky to take the first Snowdrop
into a house—the fiower being regarded as a death-token, inasmuch
as it looks like a corpse in its shroud.
SO L A N U M .—To this family belong the Love Apple, the
Mad Apple, and the Bitter-Sweet. Several species of the genus
Solanum are poisonous and highly dangerous plants. It is related
that when Sweno, king of Norway, was besieging Duncan of Scotland
in the town of Betha, Macbeth, his cousin, managed to leave
the town, whereupon Duncan began to treat with the enemy as to the
terms of a surrender, promising them a supply of provender. The
Danes accepted the terms, and Duncan sent them their provisions,
which they duly partook o f ; but soon after they were over-,
come by a profound lethargic sleep, for their wine and ale had
been drugged with Solanum. In this condition they fell an easy
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p l a n t b o ro , b e g e t ^ / , aTiil b y r ic /. 547'
prey to Macbeth, who attacked them and utterly routed their forces.
who had entertained suspicions with
regard to Duncan s gift of supplies, remained in their senses, and
these carried off King Sweno, in a lifeless condition, to the mouth
boat thence conveyed him home in a fishing-
SO LO M O N ’ S S E A L .—The appellation of Solomon’s Seal
has been pven to the Convallaria Polygonatum, because, on cuttin©
the roots transversely, some scars are seen resembling the device
known as Sofemon s Seal—a name given by the Arabs to a six-
pointed star fo rn jd by two equilateral triangles intersedting each
other. To the old herbalists these marks (according to the doctrine
of signatures) were an indication of the plant’s virtues or uses * it
was sent_ to seal or consolidate wounds. Gerarde says: “ That
which might be written of the herbe as touching the L it t in g of
bones, and that truely, would seeme with some incredible- but
common experience teacheth that in the world there is not to be
found another herbe comparable to it for the purposes aforesaid^
and therefore, in briefe, if it be for bruises inward, the roots must
thereto, strained, and given to
drink. B must be given in the same manner to knit broken bones
against bruises, black or blew marks gotten by stripes, falls, or
suchlike; against mfiammation, tumours, or swellings, that happen
unto members whose bones are broken, or members out of joynt
after restauration: the roots are to be stamped small, and applied
pultesse or plaister wise wherewith many great workes have L e n
performed beyond credit.” The plant is also known by the
p n ’ Seal-wort, White-root, Ladder-to-heaven,
rufe ¿ f Sfeurn ------ astrologers it is held to be under the
r.1 f of the most sacred
plants of India. It is supposed to be the Sarcostemma viminale, or
(fanchum^ virmnale {Asclepias acida), which grows on the Coromandel
Y - According to Dr. Hang, the plant at present
nf fil V sacrificial priests of the Dekhan is not the sacred Soma
^ the Vedas, although it appears to belong to the same order. In the
Hindu religion, by a truly mystic combination. Soma represents
at once the moon or moon-god, the genius presiding over the
Soma, and the plant itself. In the Vedic hymns to Soma the
notion of the plant predominates, but intermixed are references
which are only applicable to the lunar characfler of the divinity
The description^of the plant given in Garrett’s ‘ Classical Dictionary
of India is as follows “ It grows to the height of about
fo^ur or five feet, and forms a kind of bush consisting of a number
oi shoots, all coming from the same root; their stem is solid, like
wood, the bark greyish, they are without leaves, the sap appears
whitish, has a very stringent taste, is bitter but not sour; it is a
2 N.—Z
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