Trees and Plants
The national plant is rue (rūta). A bride traditionally wears a little crown made of rue, which is a symbol of maidenhood. During the wedding the crown is burned, symbolizing the loss of careless childhood and entrance into the world of adulthood.
Trees of special significance include oak (ąžuolas), birch (beržas), linden (liepa), and spruce (eglė). A veneration of oak trees comes from pagan times, when they were of religious significance. The Stelmužė Oak, thought to be at least 1,500 years old, is the best-known tree in the country. The significance of trees is reflected in the Lithuanian calendar. The month of June is, in Lithuanian, "birch" (birželio mėnuo), and the month of July is "linden" (liepos mėnuo).
Read more about this topic: National Symbols Of Lithuania
Famous quotes containing the words trees and/or plants:
“The sugar maple is remarkable for its clean ankle. The groves of these trees looked like vast forest sheds, their branches stopping short at a uniform height, four or five feet from the ground, like eaves, as if they had been trimmed by art, so that you could look under and through the whole grove with its leafy canopy, as under a tent whose curtain is raised.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“From the time the Englishman’s bones harden into bones at all, he makes his skeleton a flagstaff, and he early plants his feet like one who is to walk the world and the decks of all the seas.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)