The passion-flower has been termed Holy Rood flower, and it is the ecclesiastical emblem of Holy Cross Day, for, according to the familiar couplet— "The passion-flower long has blow'd To betoken us signs of the Holy Rood." Then there is the Michaelmas Day, which "Among dead weeds, Bloom for St. Michael's valorous deeds," and the golden star lily, termed St. Jerome's lily. On St. Luke's Day, certain flowers, as we have already noticed, have been in request for love divinations; and on the Continent the chestnut is eaten on the festival of St. Simon, in Piedmont on All Souls' Day, and in France on St. Martin's, when old women assemble beneath the windows and sing a long ballad. Hallowe'en has its use among divinations, at which time. various plants are in request, and among the observance of All Souls' Day was blessing the beans. It would appear, too, that in days gone by, on the eve of All Saints' Day, heath was specially burnt by way of a bonfire "On All Saints' Day bare is the place where the heath is burnt; The plough is in the furrow, the ox at work." From the shape of its flower, the trumpet-flowered wood-sorrel has been called St. Cecilia's flower, whose festival is kept on November 22. The Nigella damascena, popularly known as love-in-a-mist, was designated St. Catherine's flower, " from its persistent styles," writes Dr. Prior,1"resembling the spokes of her wheel." There 1 "Popular Names of British Plants," 1879, p. 204. was also the Catherine-pear, to which Gay alludes in his "Pastorals," where Sparabella, on comparing herself with her rival, says "Her wan complexion's like the withered leek, While Catherine-pears adorn my ruddy cheek." Herb-Barbara, or St. Barbara's cress (Barbarea vulgaris), was so called from growing and being eaten about the time of her festival (December 4). Coming to Christmas, some of the principal evergreens used in this country for decorative purposes are the ivy, laurel, bay, arbor vitæ, rosemary, and holly; mistletoe, on account of its connection with Druidic rites, having been excluded from churches. Speaking of the holly, Mr. Conway remarks that "it was to the ancient races of the north a sign of the life which preserved nature through the desolation of winter, and was gathered into pagan temples to comfort the sylvan spirits during the general death." He further adds that "it is a singular fact that it is used by the wildest Indians of the Pacific coast in their ceremonies of purification. The ashen-faggot was in request for the Christmas fire, the ceremonies relating to which are well known. LIBRARY OF T UNIVERSITY OF CORN CHAPTER XVIII. CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND GAMES. CHILDREN are more or less observers of nature, and frequently far more so than their elders. This, perhaps, is in a great measure to be accounted for from the fact that childhood is naturally inquisitive, and fond of having explained whatever seems in any way mysterious. Such especially is the case in the works. of nature, and in a country ramble with children their little voices are generally busy inquiring why this bird does this, or that plant grows in such a way-a variety of questions, indeed, which unmistakably prove that the young mind instinctively seeks after knowledge. Hence, we find that the works of nature enter largely into children's pastimes; a few specimens of their rhymes and games associated with plants we quote below. In Lincolnshire, the butter-bur (Petasites vulgaris) is nicknamed bog-horns, because the children use the hollow stalks as horns or trumpets, and the young leaves and shoots of the common hawthorn (Crataegus oxyacantha), from being commonly eaten by children. in spring, are known as "bread and cheese;" while ་ the ladies-smock (Cardamine pratensis) is termed "bread and milk," from the custom, it has been suggested, of country people having bread and milk for breakfast about the season when the flower first comes in. In the North of England this plant is known as cuckoo-spit, because almost every flower stem has deposited upon it a frothy patch not unlike human saliva, in which is enveloped a pale green insect. Few north-country children will gather these flowers, believing that it is unlucky to do so, adding that the cuckoo has spit upon it when flying over.1 The fruits of the mallow are popularly termed by children cheeses, in allusion to which Clare writes "The sitting down when school was o'er, A Buckinghamshire name with children for the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) is the naughtyman's cherry, an illustration of which we may quote from Curtis's "Flora Londinensis:"-" On Keep Hill, near High Wycombe, where we observed it, there chanced to be a little boy. I asked him if he knew the plant. He answered 'Yes; it was naughty-man's cherries."" In the North of England the broad-dock (Rumex obtusifolius), when in seed, is known by children as curly-cows, who milk it by drawing the stalks through their fingers. Again, in the same 1 Journal of Horticulture, 1876, p. 355. locality, children speaking of the dead-man's thumb, one of the popular names of the Orchis mascula, tell one another with mysterious awe that the root was once the thumb of some unburied murderer. In one of the "Roxburghe Ballads" the phrase is referred to "Then round the meadows did she walke, As dead-man's thumbs and harebell blue." It is to this plant that Shakespeare doubtless alludes in "Hamlet" (Act iv. sc. 7), where— "Long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead-men's fingers call them." In the south of Scotland, the name "doudle," says Jamieson, is applied to the root of the common reedgrass (Phragmites communis), which is found, partially decayed, in morasses, and of "which the children in the south of Scotland make a sort of musical instrument, similar to the oaten pipes of the ancients." In Yorkshire, the water-scrophularia (Scrophularia aquatica), is in children's language known as " fiddle-wood," so called because the stems are by children stripped of their leaves, and scraped across each other fiddlerfashion, when they produce a squeaking sound. This juvenile music is the source of infinite amusement among children, and is carried on by them with much enthusiasm in their games. Likewise, the spear-thistle (Carduus lanceolatus) is designated Marian in Scot |