'A wisp of bast'

Here's the devout blasphemer Ronald Firbank's take on Christ the gardener (in perhaps his best novel, Valmouth):

With angelic humour Mrs Hurstpierpoint swept skyward her heavy-lidded eyes.
'I thought last night, in my sleep,' she murmured, 'that Christ was my new gardener. I thought I saw Him in the Long Walk there, by the bed of Nelly Roche, tending a fallen flower with a wisp of bast.... "Oh, Seth," I said to Him... "remember the fresh lilies for the altar-vases... Cut all the myosotis there is," I said, "and grub plenty of fine, feathery moss..." And then, as He turned, I saw of course it was not Seth at all.'