The crooked oak, the tall Norway spruce and other trees that surround us were touched with sunlight this morning. We don’t need a bell tower; they serve that purpose. 

I discovered on Google books a few days ago an old study of plants and trees by Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics, London 1884 that’s a treasure of information.

From the beginning human beings saw plants, flowers and trees as more than just things; they were involved in their lives and the stories of their religion.  Folkard traces the attribution of plants, flowers and trees:

“In the dark ages the Catholic monks , who cultivated with assiduity all sorts of herbs and flowers in their monastic gardens , came in time to associate them with traditions of the Church , and to look upon them as emblems of particular saints . Aware , also , of the innate love of humanity for flowers , they selected the most popular as symbols of the Church festivals , and in time every flower became connected with some saint of the Calendar , either from blowing about the time of the saint’s day , or from being connected with him in some old legend.”

“But it was more especially upon the Virgin Mary that the early Church bestowed their floral symbolism … The poetry no less than the piety of Europe has inscribed to her the whole bloom and colouring of the fields and hedges .  The choicest flowers were wrested from the classic Juno , Venus , and Diana , and from the Scandinavian Bertha and Freyja , and bestowed upon the Madonna , whilst floral offerings of every sort were laid upon her shrines . Her husband , Joseph , has allotted to him a white Campanula , which in Bologna is known as the little Staff of St. Joseph . In Tuscany the name of St. Joseph’s staff is given to the Oleander : a legend recounts that the good Joseph possessed originally only an ordinary staff , but that when the angel announced to him that he was destined to be the husband of the Virgin Mary , he became so radiant with joy , that his very staff flowered in his hand.”

“A Catholic writer complained that at the Reformation” Foukard continues, “ the very names of plants were changed in order to divert men’s minds from the least recollection of ancient Christian piety ;  and a Protestant writer of the last century , bewailing the ruthless action of the Puritans in giving to the ” Queen of Beauty ” flowers named after the ” Queen of Heaven , ” says : Botany , which in ancient times was full of the Blessed Virgin Mary , is now as full of the heathen Venus . ” 

The monks were good catechists, but their work today is largely ignored. There’s hardly a trace of the Catholic tradition in Wikipedia’s listings of trees and plants.

So I sent for seeds for white Campanula, the Lupine, and others I found in Foukard’s book.  I hope I can tells the stories the old Catholic monks told. They’re stories that should be told.