The Folk-lore of Plants

And in some parts of the Continent churches are adorned at Christmas-tide with the amaranth, as a symbol "of that immortality to which their faith bids them look." Grass, from its many beneficial qualities, has been made the emblem of usefulness; and the ivy, from its persistent habit of clinging to the heaviest support, has been universally adopted as the symbol of confiding love and fidelity. Growing rapidly, it iron clasps:-- "The fissured stone with its entwining arms, And embowers with leaves for ever green, And berries dark." According to a Cornish tradition, the beautiful Iseult, unable to endure the loss of her betrothed--the brave Tristran--died of a broken heart, and was buried in the same church, but, by order of the king, the two graves were placed at a distance from each other. Soon, however, there burst forth from the tomb of Tristran a branch of ivy, and another from the grave of Iseult; these shoots gradually growing upwards, until at last the lovers, represented by the clinging ivy, were again united beneath the vaulted roof of heaven.[2] Then, again, the cypress, in floral language, denotes mourning; and, as an emblem of woe, may be traced to the familiar classical myth of Cyparissus, who, sorrow-stricken at having skin his favourite stag, was transformed into a cypress tree. Its ominous and sad character is the subject of constant allusion, Virgil having introduced it into the funeral rites of his heroes. Shelley speaks of the unwept youth whom no mourning maidens decked,