She says that this flower is very dear to Mary, who planted it and made much use of it.
"Then there is another plant which seems to me no less appropriate: the bracken--not by reason of the qualities ascribed to it by Saint Hildegarde, but because it symbolizes the most secret and retiring humility.

Take one of the stoutest stems and cut it aslant, like the mouthpiece of a whistle, and you will find very distinctly imprinted in black the form of a heraldic _fleur de lys_, as if stamped with a hot iron.

The scent being absent, we may here accept it as the symbol of humility--a humility so perfect that it is undiscoverable but in death." "Aha! our friend is not so ignorant of country lore as I had fancied," exclaimed Madame Bavoil.
"Oh, I wandered in the woods a little, as a child." "For the choir no discussion is possible, I believe," said the Abbe Gevresin.

"The eucharistic plants, the vine and corn are self-evidently appropriate.
"The vine, of which the Lord said '_Ego vitis sum_,' is also the emblem of communion and the image of the eighth beatitude; corn, which, as the Sacramental element, was the object of peculiar care and respect in the Middle Ages.
"You have only to recall the solemn ceremonial observed in certain convents when the wafer was to be prepared.
"At Saint Etienne, Caen, the monks washed their face and hands, and kneeling before the altar of Saint Benedict, said Lauds, the seven penitential Psalms, and the Litanies of the Saints.

Then a lay brother presented the mould in which the wafers were to be baked, two at a time; and on the day when this unleavened bread was prepared those who had taken part in the ceremony dined together, and their table was served exactly like the Abbot's.
"At Cluny, again, three priests or three deacons, fasting after the above-mentioned services of prayer, put on albs and invited the aid of certain lay brethren.