Herrick, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, all sing the praises of the Narcissus, or Lent Lily, the Daffodil and Daffadowndily of our forefathers,—names which they formed from the still older one of Affodilly, a corruption of Asphodelus.
NASTURTIUM.—According to Rapin, the Nasturtium was once a young Trojan huntsman; but the Jesuit poet gives no details of the metamorphosis, merely stating that
“Shield-like Nasturtium, too, confusedly spread,
With intermingling Trefoil fills each bed—
Once graceful youths; this last a Grecian swain,
The first an huntsman on the Trojan plain.”
The
shield-like form of the Nasturtium’s leaves and its curiously-shaped flowers, which resemble golden helmets, have obtained for the plant the Latin name of “Tropæolum” (trophy). Its old English names were Yellow Lark’s-heels and Indian Cress.——The seed of the Nasturtium, according to Macer Floridus, possess a great power to repel serpents.——Linnæus has recorded that his daughter Elizabeth Christina observed the flowers of the Nasturtium emit spontaneously, at certain intervals, sparks like electric ones, visible only in the evening.
NEEM.—The Neem-tree (Azardirachta Indica) is considered by the Indians a sacred tree, and is described by their poets as the type of everything bitter. Its bark is used as a substitute for Cinchona in cases of fevers.
NELUMBO.—The Nelumbo, Sacred Lotus, or Padma (Nelumbium speciosum), was the Sacred Bean of Egypt, the Rose Lily of the Nile spoken of by Herodotus. The beauty of its blossoms, which are sometimes of a brilliant red colour, but rarely white, hanging over broad peltated leaves considerably above the surface of the water, render this the most lovely and graceful of all the Water Lilies; and at the same time it is the most interesting on account of its remote historical associations. Four thousand years ago the Nelumbo was the emblem of sanctity in Egypt amongst the priests of a religion long since defunct; and the plant itself has long been extinct in that country, though in India and China the flowers are held especially sacred, and the plant is commonly cultivated. The Chinese call this sacred flower the Lien-wha, and prize it above all others. Celebrated for its beauty by their poets, and ranked for its virtues among the plants which, according to Chinese theology, enter into the beverage of immortality, this Lien-wha is to the Chinese what the Gul or Rose is to the Persians; and a moonlight excursion on a tranquil river covered with its yellow blossoms is numbered by the inhabitants of the Flowery Land among the supreme delights of mortal existence. (See also [Lotus] and [Nymphæa]).