The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
VIRGIL'S _Gnat_.
Chaucer describes it as--
"The erbe Ivie that groweth in our yard that mery is."
And in the same poem he prettily describes it as--
"The pallid Ivie building his own bowre."
As a wild plant, the Ivy is found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but not
in America, and wherever it is found it loves to cover old walls and
buildings, and trees of every sort, with its close and rich drapery and
clusters of black fruit,[132:1] and where it once establishes itself it
is always beautiful, but not always harmless. Both on trees and
buildings it requires very close watching. It will very soon destroy
soft-wooded trees, such as the Poplar and the Ash, by its tight embrace,
not by sucking out the sap, but by preventing the outward growth of the
shoots, and checking--and at length preventing--the flow of sap; and in
buildings it is no doubt beneficial as long as it is closely watched and
kept in place, but if allowed to drive its roots into joints, or to grow
under roofs, the swelling roots and branches will soon displace any
masonry, and cause immense mischief.
We have only one species of Ivy in England, and there are only two real
species recognized by present botanists, but there are infinite
varieties, and many of them very beautiful. These variegated Ivies were
known to the Greeks and Romans, and were highly prized by them, one
especially with white fruit (at present not known) was the type of
beauty. No higher praise could be given to a beauty than that she was
"Hedera formosior alba." These varieties are scarcely mentioned by
Gerard and Parkinson, and probably were not much valued; they are now in
greater repute, and nothing will surpass them for rapidly and
effectually covering any bare spaces.
I need scarcely add that the Ivy is so completely hardy that it will
grow in any aspect and in any soil; that its flowers are the staple food
of bees in the late autumn; and that all the varieties grow easily from
cuttings at almost any time of the year.
FOOTNOTES:
[130:1] Sheep feeding on Ivy--
"My sheep have Honeysuckle bloom for pasture; Ivy grows
In multitudes around them, and blossoms like the Rose."
THEOCRITUS, _Idyll_ v. (_Calverley_).
[132:1]
"The Ivy-mesh
Shading the Ethiop berries."--KEATS, _Endymion_.
KECKSIES.
_Burgundy._
And nothing teems
But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51).
Kecksies or Kecks are the dried and withered stems of the Hemlock, and
the name is occasionally applied to the living plant. It seems also to
have been used for any dry weeds--
"All the wyves of Tottenham came to se that syght,
With Wyspes, and Kexis, and ryschys ther lyght,
To fech hom ther husbandes, that wer tham trouth plyght."
"The Tournament of Tottenham," in
RITSON'S _Ancient Songs and Ballads_.
KNOT-GRASS.
_Lysander._
Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering Knot-grass made;
You bead, you Acorn.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 2 (328).
The Knot-grass is the Polygonum aviculare, a British weed, low,
straggling, and many-jointed, hence its name of Knot-grass. There is no
doubt that this is the plant meant, and its connection with a dwarf is
explained by the belief, probably derived from some unrecorded character
detected by the "doctrine of signatures," that the growth of children
could be stopped by a diet of Knot-grass. Steevens quotes Beaumont and
Fletcher to this effect, and this will probably explain the epithet
"hindering." But there may be another explanation. Johnston tells us
that in the north, "being difficult to cut in the harvest time, or to
pull in the process of weeding, it has obtained the sobriquet of the
Deil's-lingels." From this it may well be called "hindering," just as
the Ononis, from the same habit of catching the plough and harrow, has
obtained the prettier name of "Rest-harrow."
But though Shakespeare's Knot-grass is undoubtedly the Polygonum, yet
the name was also given to another plant, for this cannot be the plant
mentioned by Milton--
"The chewing flocks
Had ta'en their supper on the savoury herb
Of Knot-grass dew-besprent."--_Comus._
In this case it must be one of the pasture Grasses, and may be Agrostis
stolonifera, as it is said to be in Aubrey's "Natural History of Wilts"
(Dr. Prior).
LADY-SMOCKS.
_Song of Spring._
And Lady-smocks all silver-white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.
_Love's Labour's Lost_, act v, sc. 2 (905).
Lady-smocks are the flowers of Cardamine pratensis, the pretty early
meadow flower of which children are so fond, and of which the popularity
is shown by its many names: Lady-smocks, Cuckoo-flower,[134:1] Meadow
Cress, Pinks, Spinks, Bog-spinks, and May-flower, and "in Northfolke,
Canterbury Bells." The origin of the name is not very clear. It is
generally explained from the resemblance of the flowers to smocks hung
out to dry, but the resemblance seems to me rather far-fetched.
According to another explanation, "the Lady-smock, a corruption of Our
Lady's-smock, is so called from its first flowering about Lady-tide. It
is a pretty purplish white, tetradynamous plant, which blows from
Lady-tide till the end of May, and which during the latter end of April
covers the moist meadows with its silvery-white, which looks at a
distance like a white sheet spread over the fields."--_Circle of the
Seasons._ Those who adopt this view called the plant Our Lady's-smock,
but I cannot find that name in any old writers. Drayton, coeval with
Shakespeare, says--
"Some to grace the show,
Of Lady-smocks most white do rob each neighbouring mead,
Wherewith their loose locks most curiously they braid."
And Isaac Walton, in the next century, drew that pleasant picture of
himself sitting quietly by the waterside--"looking down the meadows I
could see here a boy gathering Lilies and Lady-smocks, and there a girl
cropping Culverkeys and Cowslips."[134:2]
There is a double variety of the Lady-smock which makes a handsome
garden plant, and there is a remarkable botanical curiosity connected
with the plant which should be noticed. The plant often produces in the
autumn small plants upon the leaves, and by the means of these little
parasites the plant is increased, and even if the leaves are detached
from the plant, and laid upon moist congenial soil, young plants will be
produced. This is a process that is well known to gardeners in the
propagation of Begonias, and it is familiar to us in the proliferous
Ferns, where young plants are produced on the surface or tips of the
fronds; and Dr. Masters records "the same condition as a teratological
occurrence in the leaves of Hyacinthus Pouzolsii, Drosera intermedia,
Arabis pumila, Chelidonum majus, Chirita Sinensis, Epicia bicolor,
Zamia, &c."--_Vegetable Teratology_, p. 170.
FOOTNOTES:
[134:1] "Ladies-smock.--A kind of water cresses, of whose virtue it
partakes; and it is otherwise called Cuckoo-flower."--PHILLIPS, _World
of Words_, 1696.
[134:2] Culverkeys is mentioned in Dennis' "Secrets of Angling" as a
meadow flower: "pale Ganderglas, and azor Culverkayes." It is also
mentioned by Aubrey, in his "Natural History of Wilts;" but the name is
found in no other writer, and is now extinct. It is difficult to say
what plant is meant; many have been suggested: the Columbine, the Meadow
Orchis, the Bluebell, &c. I think it must be the Meadow Geranium, which
is certainly "azor" almost beyond any other British plant. "Culver" is a
dove or pigeon, and "keyes" or "kayes" are the seeds of a plant, and the
seeds of the Geranium were all likened to the claws of birds, so that
our British species is called G. columbinum.
LARK'S HEELS.
Larks heels trim.
_Two Noble Kinsmen_, Introd. song.
Lark's heels is one of the many names of the Garden Delphinium,
otherwise called Larkspur, Larksclaw, Larkstoes.
LAUREL.
(1) _Clarence._
To whom the heavens in thy nativity
Adjudged an Olive branch and Laurel crown
As likely to be blest in peace and war.
_3rd Henry VI_, act iv, sc. 6 (33).
(2) _Titus._
Cometh Andronicus bound with Laurel boughs.
_Titus Andronicus_, act i, sc. 1 (74).
(3) _Cleopatra._
Upon your sword
Sit Laurel victory.
_Antony and Cleopatra_, act i, sc. 3 (99).
(4) _Ulysses._
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, Laurels.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act i, sc. 3 (107).
This is one of the plants which Shakespeare borrowed from the classical
writers; it is not the Laurel of our day, which was not introduced till
after his death,[136:1] but the Laurea Apollinis, the Laurea Delphica--
"The Laurel meed of mightie conquerors
And poet's sage,"--SPENSER;
that is, the Bay. This is the tree mentioned by Gower--
"This Daphne into a Lorer tre
Was turned, whiche is ever grene,
In token, as yet it may be sene,
That she shalle dwelle a maiden stille."
_Conf. Aman._ lib. terc.
There can be little doubt that the Laurel of Chaucer also was the Bay,
the--
"Fresh grene Laurer tree
That gave so passing a delicious smelle
According to the Eglantere ful welle."
He also spoke of it as the emblem of enduring freshness--
"Myn herte and al my lymes be as grene
As Laurer, through the yeer is for to seene."
_The Marchaundes Tale._
The Laurel in Lyte's "Herbal" (the Lauriel or Lourye) seems to be the
Daphne Laureola. But unconsciously Chaucer and Shakespeare spoke with
more botanical accuracy than we do, the Bay being a true Laurel, while
the Laurel is a Cherry (_see_ BAY).
FOOTNOTES:
[136:1] The first Laurel grown in Europe was grown by Clusius in 1576.
LAVENDER.
_Perdita._
Here's flowers for you;
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.
_Winter's Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (103).
The mention of Lavender always recalls Walton's pleasant picture of "an
honest ale-house, where we shall find a cleanly room, Lavender in the
windows, and twenty ballads stuck against the wall, and my hostess, I
may tell you, is both cleanly and handsome and civil." Whether it is
from this familiar, old-fashioned picture, or from some inherent charm
in the plant, it is hard to say, but it is certain that the smell of
Lavender is always associated with cleanliness and freshness.[137:1]
It is not a British plant, but is a native of the South of Europe in dry
and barren places, and it was introduced into England in the sixteenth
century, but it probably was not a common plant in Shakespeare's time,
for though it is mentioned by Spenser as "the Lavender still gray"
("Muiopotmos"), and by Gerard as growing in his garden, it is not
mentioned by Bacon in his list of sweet-smelling plants. The fine
aromatic smell is found in all parts of the shrub, but the essential oil
is only produced from the flowers. As a garden plant it is found in
every garden, but its growth as an extensive field crop is chiefly