The chief flowers used by them for strewing over graves were the polyanthus, myrtle, and amaranth; the rose, it would appear from Anacreon, having been thought to possess a special virtue for the dead:—­

  “When pain afflicts and sickness grieves,
  Its juice the drooping heart relieves;
  And after death its odours shed
  A pleasing fragrance o’er the dead.”

And Electra is represented as complaining that the tomb of her father, Agamemnon, had not been duly adorned with myrtle—­

  “With no libations, nor with myrtle boughs,
  Were my dear father’s manes gratified.”

The Greeks also planted asphodel and mallow round their graves, as the seeds of these plants were supposed to nourish the dead.  Mourners, too, wore flowers at the funeral rites, and Homer relates how the Thessalians used crowns of amaranth at the burial of Achilles.  The Romans were equally observant, and Ovid, when writing from the land of exile, prayed his wife—­“But do you perform the funeral rites for me when dead, and offer chaplets wet with your tears.  Although the fire shall have changed my body into ashes, yet the sad dust will be sensible of your pious affection.”  Like the Greeks, the Romans set a special value on the rose as a funeral flower, and actually left directions that their graves should be planted with this favourite flower, a custom said to have been introduced by them into this country.  Both Camden and Aubrey allude to it, and at the present day in Wales white roses denote the graves of young unmarried girls.

Coming down to modern times, we find the periwinkle, nicknamed “death’s flower,” scattered over the graves of children in Italy—­notably Tuscany—­and in some parts of Germany the pink is in request for this purpose.  In Persia we read of:—­

       “The basil-tuft that waves
  Its fragrant blossoms over graves;”

And among the Chinese, roses, the anemone, and a species of lycoris are planted over graves.  The Malays use a kind of basil, and in Tripoli tombs are adorned with such sweet and fragrant flowers as the orange, jessamine, myrtle, and rose.  In Mexico the Indian carnation is popularly known as the “flower of the dead,” and the people of Tahiti cover their dead with choice flowers.  In America the Freemasons place twigs of acacia on the coffins of brethren.  The Buddhists use flowers largely for funeral purposes, and an Indian name for the tamarisk is the “messenger of Yama,” the Indian God of Death.  The people of Madagascar have a species of mimosa, which is frequently found growing on the tombs, and in Norway the funeral plants are juniper and fir.  In France the custom very largely nourishes, roses and orange-blossoms in the southern provinces being placed in the coffins of the young.  Indeed, so general is the practice in France that, “sceptics and believers uphold it, and statesmen, and soldiers, and princes, and scholars equally with children and maidens are the objects of it.”