ring His Cross, He happened to pass by the
door of Veronica, who, beholding the drops of agony on His brow, wiped
His face with a kerchief or napkin. The sacred features, however,
remained impressed upon the linen, and from the fancied resemblance of
the blossom of the speedwell to this hallowed relic, the plant was
named Veronica.

A plant closely connected by tradition with the crucifixion is the
passion-flower. As soon as the early Spanish settlers in South America
first glanced on it, they fancied they had discovered not only a
marvellous symbol of Christ's passion, but received an assurance of the
ultimate triumph of Christianity. Jacomo Bosio, who obtained his
knowledge of it from certain Mexican Jesuits, speaks of it as "the
flower of the five wounds," and has given a very minute description of
it, showing how exactly every part is a picture of the mysteries of the
Passion. "It would seem," he adds, "as if the Creator of the world had
chosen it to represent the principal emblems of His Son's Passion; so
that in due season it might assist, when its marvels should be explained
to them, in the condition of the heathen people, in whose country it
grew." In Brittany, vervain is popularly termed the "herb of the cross,"
and when gathered with a certain formula is efficacious in curing
wounds. [21]

In legendary lore, much uncertainty exists as to the tree on which Judas
hanged himself. According to Sir John Maundeville, there it stood in the
vicinity of Mount Sion, "the tree of eldre, that Judas henge himself
upon, for despeyr," a legend which has been popularly received.
Shakespeare, in his "Love's Labour's Lost," says "Judas was hanged on an
elder," and the story is further alluded to in Piers Plowman's vision:--

"Judas, he japed
With Jewen silver,
And sithen on an eller,
Hanged himselve."

Gerarde makes it the wild carob, a tree which, as already stated, was
formerly known as "St. John's bread," from a popular belief that the
Baptist fed upon it while in the wilderness. A Sicilian tradition
identifies the tree as a tamarisk, and a Russian proverb, in allusion to
the aspen, tells us "there is an accursed tree which trembles without
even a breath of wind." The fig, also, has been mentioned as the
ill-fated tree, and some traditions have gone so far as to say that it
was the very same one as was cursed by our Lord.

As might be expected, numerous plants have become interwoven with the
lives of the sain