In the East the Rose of Jericho is looked upon with favour by women with child, for "there is a cherished legend that it first blossomed at our Saviour's birth, closed at the Crucifixion, and opened again at Easter, whence its name of Resurrection Flower" (448. 528).
Gerarde, the old herbalist, tells us that the black hellebore is called "Christ's Herb," or "Christmas Herb," because it "flowreth about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ" (448. 281).
Certain varieties of the hawthorn also were thought to blossom on Christmas Day. The celebrated Abbey of Glastonbury in England possessed such a thorn-tree, said to have sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea, when he stuck it into the ground, in that part of England, which he is represented as having converted. The "Glastonbury Thorn" was long believed to be a convincing witness to the truth of the Gospel by blossoming without fail every Christmas Day (448. 352, 353).
Many plants, trees, and flowers owe their peculiarities to their connection with the birth or the childhood of Christ. The Ornithogalum umbellatum is called the "Star of Bethlehem," according to Folkard, because "its white stellate flowers resemble the pictures of the star that indicated the birth of the Saviour of mankind" (448. 553). The Galium verum, "Our Lady's Bedstraw," receives its name from the belief that the manger in which the infant Jesus lay was filled with this plant (448. 249).
The flight of the Holy Family into Egypt has attracted to it as a centre a large group of legends belonging to this category, many of which are to be found in Folkard and Busk.
Of a certain tree, with leaves like the sensitive plant, in Arabia, we read that this peculiarity arose from the fact that when near the city of Heliopolis "Joseph led the dromedary that bore the blessed Mother and her Divine Son, under a neighbouring tree, and as he did so, the green branches bent over the group, as if paying homage to their Master."
Near Mataria there was said to be a sycamore-tree, called "the Tree of Jesus and Mary," which gave shelter at nightfall to the Holy Family, and to this fact the Mohammedans are reported to attribute the great longevity and verdure of the sycamore (448. 558).
A widespread tradition makes the "Rose of Jericho," called also "St. Mary's Rose," spring up on every spot where the Holy Family rested on their way to Egypt. The juniper owes the extraordinary powers with which it is credited in the popular mind to the fact that it once saved the life of the Virgin and the infant Christ. The same kind offices have been attributed to the hazel-tree, the fig, the rosemary, the date-palm, etc. Among the many legends accounting for the peculiarity of the aspen there is one, preserved in Germany, which attributes it to the action of this tree when the Holy Family entered the dense forest in which it stood (448. 230):—
"As they entered this wilderness, all the trees bowed themselves down in reverence to the infant God; only the Aspen, in her exceeding pride and arrogance, refused to acknowledge Him, and stood upright." In consequence of this "the Holy Child pronounced a curse against her; … and, at the sound of His words, the Aspen began to tremble through all her leaves, and has not ceased to tremble to this day." According to a Sicilian legend, "the form of a hand is to be seen in the interior of the fruit of the pine," representing "the hand of Jesus blessing the tree which had saved Him during the flight into Egypt by screening Him and His mother from Herod's soldiers" (448. 496).
We have from Rome the following tradition (415. 173):—