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                                               Intro Mary Garden

                       
 MINIATURE FLOWER PHOTOS 

These are photos of a few of the more striking medieval flower
symbols of Our Lady - from the one thousand or so found in our
research. 


From the Church Fathers and the Liturgy:
     Spotless Lily - Madonna Lily
     Bush Burning but Unconsumed - Holly

Immaculate Conception:
     Ivory Tower - Yucca

Annunciation:
     Mary's (Angelus) Bells - Bell Flower
     Fruitful Virgin (Flower & Fruit) - Strawbrry

Mary:
     Peace Lily (Virgin & Child)
     Mary (Our Lady of Guadalupe) - Painted Feather

Nativity :
     Star of Bethlehem
     Christmas Rose
     Our Lady's Bedstraw - Yellow Bedstraw
     Mary's Milkdrops - Lungwort
     Christ's Cradle - Moses in Bulrushes
     Epiphany Flower - Chrysanthemum
     Bird's Nest Madonna  See In 'Mary's Garden'
     Baby Jesus' Fingers & Toes - Fumitory

Presentation:
     Candlemas Bells - Snowdrops
     Mary's Sword (of Sorrow) - Iris
     St. Simeon's Flower ("Many Hearts") - Musk Mallow

Nazareth:
     Our Lady's Slipper Ladyslipper
     Mary's Shoes _ Columbine spurs
     Our Lady's Pincushion - Thrift
     Our Lady's Basin - Fuller's Teasel
     Our Lady's Fingers -Honysuckle
     Our Lady's Gloves Foxglove
     Our Lady's Needlework - Jupiter's Beard
     Our Lady's Nightcap - Canterbury Bells
     Our Lady's Smock - Bindwed
     Our Lady's Thimble - Harebell
     Mary's  Tuft - Sweet William
     Our Lady's Veil - Baby's Breath

Calvary:
     Christ's (Bloodied) Sweat St. Johnswort
     Christ's (Bloodied) Back - Yarrow
     Crown of Thorns
     Christ's Blood Drops - Loosestrife
     Passion Flower
     Mary's Hair  (Torn in Anguish)
         - Quaking Grass
         - Ladies Tresses
         - Maidenhair Fern
         - Yellow Bedstraw
         - Asparagus Fern
- also from the research (photos not posted)
             - Maidenhair
             - Travelers' Joy
             - Dodder
             - Dryas
             - Fire Weed
             - Hemp Nettle
             - Yellow Bedstraw
             - Barley
             - St. Johnswort
             - Kennelworth Ivy
             - Toadflax
             - Rush
             - Shield Fern

    Mary's Tears
         - Virginia Spiderwort (blue tear-like fluid from spent blooms)
         - Ladies Mantle (drops of water remaining on leaves from rain)
         - Lily-of-the-Valley (small tear-like white blooms)
         - Lungwort (small blue, and pink, flowers representing the
               blue of Mary's eyes and their reddening from weeping)
         - Gromwell (small tear-like white blooms)
         - Quaking Grass (tear-like seed clumps)
         - Job's Tears (round tear-like seeds)
         - Larkspur (tear-like buds)
         - Sundew (tear-like drops of rain water on flower filaments}

Mary in Heaven:
     Mary's Crown - Bachelor's Buttons
     Mary's Rose - German Catchfly
     Mary's Gold - Marigold
     Our Lady's Mantle - Morning Glory
     Mary, Seat of Wisdom
     The Virgin (Clothed with the Sun) - Zinnea
     Eyes of Mary (of Mercy) - Forget-me-not
     Heart of Mary - Bleeding Heart
     Mary's Hand (of Pity) -Cinquefoil
     Our Lady's Keys  (to the Heavenly Storehouses of Grace) - Cowslip
     Sweet Mary (Fragrance) - Leon Balm

Mary's Presence:
     Mary's Thumb (Print) - Knotweed


A Few Comments

According to old imaginitive folk legends, "Our Ladys's Bedstraw"
burst into its golden blooms when the Infant Savior was laid on it
in the Manger by Mary - as a symbol of Our Lord's divinity at birth.

The companion, "Mary's Milkdrops", was similarly held to have
acquired the white markings on its plant leaves when the nursing
Maiden Mother's milkdrops fell on them - as a symbol of Our Lord's
humanity, "True God and True Man" -  believed to be the inspiration
for the Nursing Madonna paintings in religious art.

Purported actual preservations of Our Lady's Bedstraw and Mary's
Milkdrops, brought back from the Holy Land by returning Crusaders
and pilgrims, were included in the collection of "Relics of the
Virgin" taken on tour through Europe in 1112 and England in
1113, accompanied by many miracles - and are believed to have
been the inspiration for the corresponding flower symbols (with many
other parallels, such as "Our Lady's Mantle", "Our Lady's Slipper",
"Our Lady's Tresses", etc.).  The legend of Mary's Milkdrops was so
widespread that botanists, when naming and classifying plant
species, gave one of the Mary's Milkdrops plants, the Milk Thistle,
the Latin scientific name, Silybum Marianum.  The common name,
"Ladyslipper", has been applied to several tropical genuses of 
orchids as well as to the European wild orchid(s) as listed above.

Medieval church wood carvings of the Madonna and Child, such as the
renowned Romanesque Auvergne Virgins of France, contained
compartments in their bases for relics of the Virgin and were thus
known as "Reliquary Madonnas".

The origin of the name is yet to be documented by us, but we make
the conjecture that the "Slipper Chapel" at the Walsingham Shrine of
Our Lady in England, destroyed by Cromwell, was so named because
a relic of Our Lady's Slipper was reserved there - from which arose
the practice, restored today, for pilgrims to remove their shoes at
the Chapel and to proceed the rest of the way to the main Shrine
barefooted.

                            o O o

All texts and graphics of web page and site copyright Mary's
Gardens, 1995.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted to
reproduce for promotion of the greater glory of God through
knowledge, honor, praise and veneration of, and devotion and
recourse to, the Blessed Virgin Mary.