In the language of flowers, the thistle is an ancient Celtic symbol of nobility of character as well as of birth, for the wounding or provocation of a thistle yields punishment. For this reason the thistle is the symbol of the Order of the Thistle, a high chivalric order of Scotland.
Another story is that a bare foot Viking attacker stepped on one at night and cried out, so alerting the defenders of a Scottish castle. Whatever the justification, the national flower of Scotland is the Thistle. It is found in many Scottish symbols and as the name of several Scottish football clubs. Carnegie Mellon University features the Thistle in its crest.
~Wikipedia
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Villanova University is an arboretum.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arboretum_Villanova