Personality of plants

PERSONALITY OF PLANTS
many widely separated localities, forming, as it
were, the ground-work of a great universal system
of folklore. This would suggest that plant
myths are founded mainly on true and inherent
facts rather than on passing fancies. Almost all
the nations have chosen the Rose for the queen
of the floral court, and therefore the most fitting
symbol of love. The White Lily has purity writ-
ten on its spotless petals, and could never stand
for anything else, anywhere. The Poppy is a
brilliant, sensuous flower, quite suggestive of
the narcotic excesses which its opium induces.
Many extravagant plant beliefs of the past had
their foundation in medicine. In the Middle
Ages, quacks and charlatans used herbs having
curative powers to exhort money from the mas-
ses. A few of the correctives were of real value,
but there were thousands of out-and-out decep-
tions. Even so redolent and simple a thing as
the common Onion was sometimes suspended
in a room in the belief that it would draw all
troublesome maladies out of the inmates. The
first herbalists were priests, but gradually their
art passed into the hands of professional out-
siders, where it suffered greater and greater
abuse.
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