Project Gutenberg's The Folk-lore of Plants, by T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

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Title: The Folk-lore of Plants

Author: T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

Release Date: November 18, 2003 [EBook #10118]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE FOLK-LORE OF PLANTS

BY

T.F. THISELTON-DYER

1889

PREFACE.

Apart from botanical science, there is perhaps no subject of inquiry
connected with plants of wider interest than that suggested by the study
of folk-lore. This field of research has been largely worked of late
years, and has obtained considerable popularity in this country, and on
the Continent.

Much has already been written on the folk-lore of plants, a fact which
has induced me to give, in the present volume, a brief systematic
summary--with a few illustrations in each case--of the many branches
into which the subject naturally subdivides itself. It is hoped,
therefore, that this little work will serve as a useful handbook for
those desirous of gaining some information, in a brief concise form, of
the folk-lore which, in one form or another, has clustered round the
vegetable kingdom.

T.F. THISELTON-DYER.

November 19, 1888.

CONTENTS.

I. PLANT LIFE

II. PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE NOTIONS RESPECTING PLANTS

III. PLANT WORSHIP

IV. LIGHTNING PLANTS

V. PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT

VI. PLANTS IN DEMONOLOGY

VII. PLANTS IN FAIRY-LORE

VIII. LOVE-CHARMS

IX. DREAM-PLANTS

X. PLANTS AND THE WEATHER

XI. PLANT PROVERBS

XII. PLANTS AND THEIR CEREMONIAL USE

XIII. PLANT NAMES

XIV. PLANT LANGUAGE

XV. FABULOUS PLANTS

XVI. DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES

XVII. PLANTS AND THE CALENDAR

XVIII. CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND GAMES

XIX. SACRED PLANTS

XX. PLANT SUPERSTITIONS

XXI. PLANTS IN FOLK-MEDICINE

XXII. PLANTS AND THEIR LEGENDARY HISTORY

XXIII. MYSTIC PLANTS

CHAPTER I.

PLANT LIFE.

The fact that plants, in common with man and the lower animals, possess
the phenomena of life and death, naturally suggested in primitive times
the notion of their having a similar kind of existence.