h. But
plant spirits are never conceived as plant-shaped, nor to have
plant-characters ... whenever forms are given them, they are mostly
represented as a man, a woman, or a child, and often also as an animal,
dwelling in or near the plant, and emerging from it at times to do harm,
or to dispense blessings.... Whether conceptions on the animation of
plants have never developed in Chinese thought and worship before ideas
about human ghosts ... had become predominant in mind and custom, we
cannot say: but the matter seems probable" (De Groot, _op. cit._ pp.
272, 273). Tales of trees that shed blood and that cry out when hurt are
common in Chinese literature (p. 274) [as also in Southern Arabia]; also
of trees that lodge or can change into maidens of transcendent beauty
(p. 276).

It is further significant that amongst the stories of souls of men
taking up their residence in and animating trees and plants, the human
being is usually a woman, accompanied by "a fox, a dog, an old raven or
the like" (p. 276).

Thus in China are found all the elements out of which Dr. Rendel Harris
believes the Aphrodite cult was compounded in Cyprus,[65] the animation
of the anthropoid plant, its human cry, its association with a beautiful
maiden and a dog.[66]

The immemorial custom of planting trees on graves in China is supposed
by De Groot (p. 277) to be due to "the desire to strengthen the soul of
the buried person, thus to save his body from corruption, for which
reason trees such as pines and cypresses, deemed to be bearers of great
vitality for being possessed of more _shen_ than other trees, were used
preferably for such purposes". But may not such beliefs also be an
expression of the idea that a tree growing upon a grave is developed
from and becomes the personification of the deceased? The significance
of the selection of pines and cypresses may be compared to that
associated with the so-called "cedars" in Babylonia, Egypt, and
Phoenicia, and the myrrh- and frankincense-producing trees in Arabia and
East Africa. They have come to be accredited with "soul-substance,"
since their use in mummification and as incense and for making coffins,
has made them the means for attaining a future existence. Hence in
course of time they came to be regarded as charged with the spirit of
vitality, the _shen_ or "soul-substance".

In China also it was because the woods of the pine or fir and the cyprus
were used for making coffins and grave-vau