In Christian art the pomegranate is depicted as bursting open and showing the seeds. This is interpreted as both a promise and an emblem of hope in immortality. St. Catharine, the mystical bride of Christ, is sometimes represented with a pomegranate in her hand. The infant Savior is also often represented as holding the fruit and offering it to the Virgin: Botticelli's "Madonna of the Melagrana" is a famous example. There is also a legend that because the pomegranate was planted on the grave of King Eteocles, the fruit has exuded blood ever since. The number of seeds has caused it to become the symbol of fecundity, generation, and wealth. MYRTLE (_Myrtus latifolia_) was looked upon in Shakespeare's time as a delicate and refined rarity, emblem of charming beauty and denoting peacefulness, plenty, repose, and love. Shakespeare makes _Venus_ and _Adonis_ meet under a myrtle shade; he speaks of "the soft myrtle" in "Measure for Measure"; and he alludes "to the moon-dew on the myrtle leaf," which is as delicate a suggestion of the evening perfume as the "morning roses newly washed with dew" is of the scents at dawn. "We nourish Myrtles with great care," says Parkinson, "for the beautiful aspect, sweet scent and rarity, as delights and ornaments for a garden of pleasure, wherein nothing should be wanting that art, care and cost might produce and preserve. "The broad-leafed Myrtle riseth up to the height of four or five foot at the most with us, full of branches and leaves, growing like a small bush, the stem and elder branches whereof are covered with a dark colored bark, but the young with a green and some with a red, especially upon the first shooting forth, whereon are set many fresh green leaves very sweet in smell and very pleasant to behold, so near resembling the leaves of the Pomegranate tree that groweth with us that they soon deceive many that are not expert therein, being somewhat broad and long and pointed at the ends, abiding always green. At the joints of the branches, where the leaves stand, come forth the flowers upon small footstalks, every one by itself, consisting of five small white leaves, with white threads in the middle, smelling also very sweet." According to the Greeks, Myrtle was a priestess of Venus and an especial favorite of the goddess, who, wishing to preserve her from a too ardent suitor, turned her into this plant, which continues odorous and green throughout the year. Having the virtue of creating and preserving love and being consecrated to Venus, the myrtle was symbolic of love. Consequently it was used for the wreaths of brides, as the orange-blossom is to-day. Venus wore a wreath of myrtle when Paris awarded her the Golden Apple for beauty,--perhaps in memory of the day when she sprang from the foam of the sea and, wafted ashore by Zephyrus, was crowned with myrtle by the Morning Hours! Myrtle was always planted around the temples dedicated to Venus. Rapin writes: