The Ansaiiah of the Latakia mountains hold in great veneration the anemone, with its variety the adaryun (shaqaiq-wo-annoman) and the myrtle (as also rihan). This reverence has connection with the worship of Adonis, who at his death was changed by Venus into an anemone. They also reverence the bay tree, the Daphne of the Greeks and Turkish dafne, and this is in commemoration of the goddess Daphne, who, when flying from the enamoured pursuit of Apollo, was converted into a laurel tree. The Bohdda Tharanat of the Burmese is the Canna Indica. Its flowers are red, or sometimes white. Buddhist Burtnese believe that it sprang from the Buddha's blood. His brother-in-law Dewadat, offended at not obtaining a separate assembly, rolled down a stone from a hill, which, however, broke into fragments, and only a small piece struck Gautama's toe, and the blood from it became this beautiful flower.
At the present day, also, Muhammadan belief is associated with the tauba tree (see Hosea iv. 13). It is their Sidrat-ul-mantaha of Paradise, the heavenly mansion of the angel Gabriel, which bears a leaf for every human birth throughout the universe, and loses a leaf for every death. The Hindus have their Kalpa tree ; and in their mythology four shady trees grew on Mount Meru, —the Nauclea cadamba, Ficus Indica, F. religiosa, and a species of Eugenia. In Swarga, the heaven of the Vedic god Indra, there grows a tree called Kat-paga Veerutcham, which sprang from the ambrosia that was churned by the gods. Individual trees, throughout India, are regarded as habitations of spirits both good and bad, and noonday is the particular period at which their influence is exercised. The demons in whom the non-Aryan races believe, are supposed to take up their dwellings in trees, and this is shared in by many Muhammadans. Hindus invoke their deceased parents beneath the banyan or pipal. Each of the Dii majores of the Hindus claim a peculiar tree. The Ficus Indica is sacred to Siva, the Ficus religiosa to Vishnu, the Butea frondosa to Brahma. The Nerium odortim; Guettarda speciosa, Calophyllum inophyllum, I Chrysanthemum Indicum, Origanum marjomnum, and Artemisia astriaka, are sacred to Siva and Vishnu. The TuLsi is sacred to Vishnu, the Bel to Siva, the Shaini and the Darin to Ganpati. Hindus, as a religious act, plant the Ficus religiosa, Ficus Indica, lEgle marmelos, Jonesia asoca, Mimusops elengi, Ficus venosa, Ficus glornerata, 3fangifera Indica, Tamarindus Indica, Dalbergia sissoo, Xanthochymuspictorius, Melia azadirachta, Michelia champaca, 3fesua ferrea, Bomssus flabel lifonnis. At the time of planting these trees, no religious ceremony takes place, but when they are dedicated to public or sacred uses, the prnt islit'ha ceremony is performed. The Hindu who plants one ushwut'hu, one nimbu, two ehumpuku, three nagukeshwuru, seven talu, and nine cocoa nut trees, and devotes them with their fruit, shade, etc., to public uses, is promised heaven.
In Europe, flowers are dedicated by Christians to the Virgin Mary, and lady's grass, lady's slippers, and others take her name.
Tree - worship prevails throughout Central Africa to the south of Egypt, and in Bruce's time the Shangalla worshipped trees, serpents, the moon, planets, and stars. Amongst the ra.ces on the Assam border, the Sij plant, Euphorbia ligu laria, is worshipped as Manasa, the serpent god dess ; and some of the wild tribes in the Chittagong Hills worship the bamboo (Phulhari bans), and use it in their human sacrifices. The Kayu To joak in Singapore is a dark-leaved sinall tree, to which superstition affixes a sacred character ; most old and isolated trees are there held to be karamat, or sacred. Small white flags are stuck up near them, and often propitiatory offerings made to the spirits supposed to reside on the spot. In some parts of Sumatra, the jawi jawi, or banyan, and some other old trees, are believed to be the dwelling or rather the material fmme of spirits of the woods, like the dryades and hamadryades of the Greeks and Romans. Herodotus tells us that Xerxes, after crossing the river Meander, when proceeding on the road to the city of Cal latebos, found a plane tree, which, on account of its beauty, he decorated with golden ornaments ; and leaving to guard it one of his troops, called the Immortals, advanced on the next day to Sardis, the chief city of the Lydians. And so in Siberia, the Jakut have sacred trees on which they bang articles of iron, brass, copper, etc. The Ostyaks also, as Pallas informs us, formerly worshipped trees. In the seventeenth century, Chardin noticed at Isfahan an ancient plane tree all bristling with nails and points, and hung with rags, as votive offerings from darvesh. Throughout all Persia, he adds, these daraldit-i-fazil are venerated by the multitude. Hanway mentions one of these near a caravansary, the rag,s being offered by persons ill with ague. It is not merely in case of sickness (though a very frequent occasion) that the modern Persians invoke the spirits sup posed to dwell in certain trees, by hanging on the branches pieces torn from their garments, but on every undertaking which they deem of magni tude, such as a commercial or matrimonial specula tion, the building of a new house, or a long journey ; and now, as when Sadi wrote 600 years ago, offerings are daily made by votaries desirous of having children. The Persian Dev-daru tree bears in Arabic a mune nearly equivalent, Shajarat jin, or Tree of the Genii ; ' and oven Shajamt kllah, or God's tree.' It is a kind of Bury or ;ypress.