marriage—a circumstance which is partly to be accounted for by the fact
that in the East the orange-tree bears ripe fruit and blossom at the same
time.
Then there is the bridal bouquet, which is a very different thing from
what it was in years gone by. Instead of being composed of the scarcest
and most costly flowers arranged in the most elaborate manner, it was a
homely nosegay of mere country flowers--some of the favourite ones,
says Herrick, being pansy, rose, lady-smock, prick-madam, gentle-heart,
and maiden-blush. A spray of gorse was generally inserted, in allusion,
no doubt, to the time-honoured proverb, "When the furze is out of
bloom, kissing is out of fashion." In spring-time again, violets and
primroses were much in demand, probably from being in abundance at
the season; although they have generally been associated with early
death.
Among the many floral customs associated with the wedding
ceremony may be mentioned the bridal-strewings, which were very
prevalent in past years, a survival of which is still kept up at Knutsford,
in Cheshire. On such an occasion, the flowers used were emblematical,
and if the bride happened to be unpopular, she often encountered on her
way to the church flowers of a not very complimentary meaning. The
practice was not confined to this country, and we are told how in
Holland the threshold of the newly-married couple was strewn with
flowers, the laurel being as a rule most conspicuous among the festoons.
Lastly, the use of flowers in paying honours to the dead has been from
time immemorial most widespread. Instances are so numerous that it is
impossible to do more than quote some of the most important, as
recorded in our own and other countries. For detailed accounts of these
funereal floral rites it would be necessary to consult the literature of the
past from a very early period, and the result of such inquiries would
form material enough for a goodly-sized volume. Therespect for the
dead among the early Greeks was very great, and Miss Lambert[6]
quotes the complaint of Petala to Simmalion, in the Epistles of Alciphron,
to show how special was the dedication of flowers to the dead:--"I have a
lover who is a mourner, not a lover; he sends me garlands and roses as if
to deck a premature grave, and he says he weeps through the live-long
night."
The chief flowers used by them for strewing over graves were the
polyanthus, myrtle, and amaranth; the rose, it would appear from
Anacreon, having been thought to possess a special virtue for the dead:--
"When pain afflicts and sickness grieves,
Its juice the drooping heart relieves;
And after death its odours shed
A pleasing fragrance o'er the dead."