And her loving luckless speed,
Twined her to this plant we call
Now the 'flower of the wall.'"
The tea-tree in China, from its marked effect on the human
constitution, has long been an agent of superstition, and been associated
with the following legend, quoted by Schleiden. It seems that a devout
and pious hermit having, much against his will, been overtaken by sleep
in the course of his watchings and prayers, so that his eyelids had closed,
tore them from his eyes and threw them on the ground in holy wrath.
But his act did not escape the notice of a certain god, who caused a tea-
shrub to spring out from them, the leaves of which exhibit, "the form of
an eyelid bordered with lashes, and possess the gift of hindering sleep."
Sir George Temple, in his "Excursions in the Mediterranean," mentions a
legend relative to the origin of the geranium. It is said that the prophet
Mohammed having one day washed his shirt, threw it upon a mallow
plant to dry; but when it was afterwards taken away, its sacred contact
with the mallow was found to have changed the plant into a fine
geranium, which now for the first time came into existence.
Footnotes:
- "Plant-Lore Legends and Lyrics."2. Folkard's "Plant Lore Legends and Lyrics,"
p. 430.3. "Sacred Trees and Flowers," Quarterly Review, cxiv. 239.