aven, of which Peter is custodian.

A number of plants were called after the Virgin Mary: these were
doubtless known as Our Lady's flowers, but their names have been
corrupted in Protestant days by the omission of the pronoun.

Lady's fingers (_Anthyllis vulneraria_) is a common enough plant bearing
a head or tuft of yellow flowers. Each has a pale swollen calyx, and
these are, I suppose, the fingers on which the name is founded, though I
find it said that it originates in the leaflets surrounding the flower
head.

Butcher's broom is known in Wales as Mary's holly, the latter half of the
name referring to its red berries and prickly leaves. It was used to
clean butcher's blocks.

Lady's slipper is so named from the strikingly shoe-like form of the
flower. It is excessively rare in England, but in Southern France one
may see great bunches gathered for sale, over which, by the way, I have
often mourned.

Lady's tresses (the orchid _Spiranthes_) is so named from the curious
twisted or braided arrangement of the flowers.

Lady's smock (_Cardamine pratensis_) bears a name immortalised in
Shakespeare's song:--

"When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady's smocks all silver white,
And cuckow-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight."

I suspect that the poet called them _silver white_ to rhyme with
_delight_, for they are distinctly lilac in colour. Nor are they
especially smock-like--many other flowers suggest a woman's skirt equally
well--but this is a carping criticism.

Lady's bedstraw seems to have been so called from the yellow colour of
one or more kinds of Galium.

Lady's bower is _Clematis vitalba_, now known as traveller's joy. Anyone
exploring Seven Leases Lane, which runs along the edge of the Cotswolds,
will travel in continuous joy, for the lady's bower converts many hundred
yards of hedge into continuous beauty.

_Pulmonaria_ has been called the Virgin Mary's tears, from the pale
circular marks on its leaves. The blue flowers have been supposed to
typify the beautiful eyes of the Virgin, while the red buds are the same
eyes disfigured with weeping.

Many plants are named after the devil; there is, for instance, a species
of _Scabiosa_ called devil's bit, because that eminent personage bit the
root short off, and so it remains to this day. His object seems to have
been to destroy the medicinal properties the plant was supposed to
possess.

We now pass on to