The Folk-lore of Plants

But, to quote another kind of sympathy between human beings and certain plants, the Cingalese have a notion that the cocoa-nut plant withers away when beyond the reach of a human voice, and that the vervain and borage will only thrive near man's dwellings. Once more, the South Sea Islanders affirm that the scent is the spirit of a flower, and that the dead may be sustained by their fragrance, they cover their newly-made graves with many a sweet smelling blossom. Footnotes: 1. See Tylor's "Primitive Culture," 1873, i. 474-5; also Dorman's "Primitive Superstitions," 1881, p. 294. 2. "Primitive Culture," i. 476-7. 3. Jones's "Ojibways," p. 104. 4. Marsden's "History of Sumatra," p. 301. 5. Mariner's "Tonga Islands," ii. 137. 6. St. John, "Far East," i. 187. 7. See Tylor's "Primitive Culture," i. 475. 8. Dorman's "Primitive Superstitions," p. 294; also Schoolcraft's "Indian Tribes." 9. See Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," iii. 61. 10. "Origin of Civilisation," 1870, p. 192. See Leslie Forbes' "Early Races of Scotland," i. 171. 11. Folkard's "Plant-lore, Legends, and Lyrics," p. 463. 12. Conway's "Mystic Trees and Flowers," Blackwood's Magazine, 1870, p. 594. 13. Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," i. 212. 14. See Black's "Folk-Medicine." 15. "Mystic Trees and Flowers," p. 594. 16. "Primitive Culture," ii. 215. 17. Metam., viii. 742-839; also Grimm's Teut. Myth., 1883, ii. 953-4 18. Grimm's Teut. Myth., ii. 653. 19. Quoted in Tylor's "Primitive Culture," ii. 221. 20. Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," ii. 72, 73. 21. Ibid., p. 219. 22. "Superstitions of Modern Greece," by M. Le Baron d'Estournelles, in Nineteenth, Century, April 1882, pp. 394, 395.