The sad impression of his sighs; which bears
Ai, Ai, displayed in funeral characters.”
In this section also are included plants which exhibit in some portion of their structure typical markings, such as the Astragalus, which in its root depicts the stars; the Banana, whose fruit, when cut, exhibits a representation of the Holy Cross; and the Bracken Fern, whose stem, when sliced, exhibits traces of letters which are sometimes used for the purposes of love divination. In Ireland, however, the Pteris aquilina is called the Fern of God, because the people imagine that if the stem be cut into three sections, on the first of these sections will be seen the letter G, on the second O, and on the third D—forming the sacred word God.
In the science of plant symbols, not only the names, but the forms, perfumes, and properties of plants have to be considered, as well as the numerical arrangements of their parts. Thus of all sacred symbolical plants, those consisting of petals or calyx-sepals, or leaves, divided into the number Five, were formerly held in peculiar reverence, because among the races of antiquity five was for ages a sacred number. The reason of this is thus explained by Bunsen:—“It is well known,” he says, “that the numeral one, the undivided, the eternal, is placed in antithesis to all other numerals. The figure four included the perfect ten, as 1+2+3+4=10. So four represents the All of the universe. Now if we put these together, 4+1 will be the sign of the whole God-Universe.” Three is a number sacred to the most ancient as well as modern worship. Pythagoras called it the perfect number, expressive of “beginning, middle, and end,” and therefore he made it a symbol of deity. Three therefore plays its rôle in plant symbology. Thus the Emblica officinalis, one of the sacred plants of India, was once the exclusive property of the priests, who kept its medicinal virtues secret: it was held in peculiar reverence because of its flowers possessing a six-parted calyx; three stamens, combined; three dichotomous styles; a fleshy fruit, tricoccous and six-seeded; these being all the sacred or double number of Three. In later days, the Shamrock or Trefoil, and the Pansy, or Herb Trinity, were regarded as symbolising the Trinity. Cruciform flowers are, at the present day, all regarded as of good omen, having been marked with the Sign of the Cross, and thus symbolising Redemption.
The presence of flowers as symbols and language on the monuments of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, India, and other countries of the past, and the graceful floral adornments sculptured on the temples of the Græco-Roman period, demonstrate how great a part flower and plant symbolism played in the early history of mankind. The Jews, learning the art from the Egyptians, preserved it in their midst, and introduced plant emblems in their Tabernacle, in their Temple, and on the garments of the priests. Flowers with golden rays became symbols of the Sun; and as the Sun was the giver of life and warmth, the bringer of fertility, the
symbolic flowers stood as symbol-words for these great gifts; and gradually all the mysterious phenomena connected with birth, reproduction, and fecundity, were represented in plant, flower, and
fruit symbolism; for not only were flowers early used as a pictorial language, but the priests made use of fruits, herbs, shrubs, and trees to symbolise light, life, warmth, and generation. Let us take a few examples:—When in the Spring, church altars and fonts are piously adorned with white Lilies, which are, in some countries, carried about, worn, and presented by ladies to each other in the month of May, few of them, we may be sure, imagine that they are perpetuating the plant symbolism of the Sun-worship of ancient Egypt. Miss Marshall tells us that “in Catholic countries the yellow anthers are carefully removed; their white filaments alone are left, not, as folks think, that the flower may remain pure white, but that the fecundating or male organs being removed, the Lilies may be true flower symbols or visible words for pure virgins; for the white dawn as yet unwedded to the day—for the pure cold Spring as yet yielding no blossoms and Summer fruits.”
Of the flowers consecrated to their deities by the symbol-worshipper of India and Egypt, the most prominent is the sacred Lotus, whose leaf was the “emblem and cradle of creative might.” It was anciently revered in Egypt as it is now in Hindustan, Thibet, and Nepaul, where the people believe it was in the consecrated bosom of this plant that Brahma was born, and that Osiris delights to float. From its peculiar organisation the Lotus is virtually self-productive: hence it became the symbol of the reproductive power of all nature, and was worshipped as a symbol of the All-Creative Power. The same floral symbol occurs wherever in the northern hemisphere symbolic religion has prevailed. The sacred images of the Tartars, Japanese, and Indians are almost all represented as resting upon Lotus-leaves. The Chinese divinity, Puzza, is seated in a Lotus, and the Japanese god is represented sitting in a Water-Lily. The Onion was formerly held in the highest esteem as a religious symbol in the mysterious solemnities and divinations of the Egyptians and Hindus. In the first place, its delicate red veins and fibres rendered it an object of veneration, as typifying the blood, at the shedding of which the Hindu shudders. Secondly, it was regarded as an astronomical emblem, for on cutting through it, there appeared beneath the external coat a succession of orbs, one within another, in regular order, after the manner of revolving spheres. The Rose has been made a symbolic flower in every age. In the East, it is the emblem of virtue and loveliness. The Egyptians made it a symbol of silence; the Romans regarded it as typical of festivity. In modern times it is considered the appropriate symbol of beauty and love,—the half-expanded bud representing the first dawn of the sublime passion, and the full-blown flower the maturity of perfect love. The Asphodel, like the Hyacinth of the ancients, was regarded as an emblem of grief and sorrow. The Myrtle, from its being dedicated to Venus, was sacred as a symbol of love and beauty. White flowers were held to be typical of light and innocence, and were consecrated to virgins. Sombre and dark-foliaged plants were held to be typical of disaster and death.
The floral symbols of the Scriptures are worthy of notice. From the circumstance of Elijah having been sheltered from the persecutions of King Ahab by the Juniper, that tree has become a symbol of succour or an asylum. The Almond was an emblem of haste and vigilance to the Hebrew writers; with Eastern poets, however, it was regarded as a symbol of hope. Throughout the East, the Aloe is regarded as a religious symbol, and is greatly venerated. It is expressive of grief and bitterness, and is religiously planted by the Mahommedans at the extremity of every grave. Burckhardt says that they call it by the Arabic name Saber, signifying patience—a singularly appropriate name; for as the plant is evergreen, it whispers to those who mourn for the loved ones they have lost, patience in their affliction. The Clover is another sacred plant symbol. St. Patrick chose it as an emblem of the Trinity when engaged in converting the Irish, who have ever since, in the Shamrock, regarded it as a representative plant. The Druids thought very highly of the Trefoil because its leaf symbolised the three departments of nature—the earth, the sea, and the heaven.
But of all plant symbols, none can equal in beauty or sanctity the Passion Flower, the lovely blossom of which, when first met with by the Spanish conquerors of the New World, suggested to their enthusiastic imagination the story of our Saviour’s Passion. The Jesuits professed to find in the several parts of the Maracot the crown of thorns, the scourge, the pillar, the sponge, the nails, and the five wounds, and they issued drawings representing the flower with its inflorescence distorted to suit their statements regarding its almost miraculous character. John Parkinson, in his Paradisus Terrestris (1629), gives a good figure of the Virginian species of the plant, as well as an engraving of “The Jesuites Figure of the Maracoc—Granadillus Frutex Indicus Christi Passionis Imago.” But, as a good Protestant, he feels bound to enter his protest against the superstitious regard paid to the flower by the Roman Catholics, and so he writes: “Some superstitious Jesuites would fain make men believe that in the flower of this plant are to be seen all the markes of our Saviour’s Passion: and therefore call it Flos Passionis: and to that end have caused figures to be drawn and printed, with all the parts proportioned out, as thornes, nailes, spear, whip, pillar, &c., in it, and as true as the sea burns, which you may well perceive by the true figure taken to the life of the plant, compared with the figure set forth by the Jesuites, which I have placed here likewise for everyone to see: but these be their advantageous lies (which with them are tolerable, or rather pious and meritorious) wherewith they use to instruct their people; but I dare say, God never willed His priests to instruct His people with lies: for they come from the Devill, the author of them.”