The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
tree were in reality the Coronet and the Coronet tree."--COCKAYNE,
_Spoon and Sparrow_, p. 21.
[32:2] The Californian Bay has not been established in England long
enough to form a timber tree, but in America it is highly prized as one
of the very best trees for cabinet work, especially for the ornamental
parts of pianos.
[33:1] For an interesting account of the Bay and the Laurels, giving the
history of the names, &c., see two papers by Mr. H. Evershed in
"Gardener's Chronicle," September, 1876.
BEANS.
(1) _Puck._
When I a fat and Bean-fed horse beguile.
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act ii, sc. 1 (45).
(2) _Carrier._
Peas and Beans are as dank here as a dog; and that is the next
way to give poor jades the bots.
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 1 (9).
The Bean (_Faba vulgaris_), though an Eastern plant, was very early
introduced into England as an article of food both for men and horses.
As an article of human food opinions were divided, as now. By some it
was highly esteemed--
"Corpus alit Faba; stringit cum cortice ventrem,
Desiccat fleuma, stomacum lumenque relidit"--
is the description of the Bean in the "Modus Cenandi," l. 182 ("Babee's
Book," ii, 48). While H. Vaughan describes it as--
"The Bean
By curious pallats never sought;"
and it was very generally used as a proverb of contempt--
"None other lif, sayd he, is worth a Bene."[34:1]
"But natheles I reche not a Bene."[34:2]
It is not apparently a romantic plant, and yet there is no plant round
which so much curious folk lore has gathered. This may be seen at full
length in Phillips' "History of Cultivated Vegetables." It will be
enough here to say that the Bean was considered as a sacred plant both
by the Greeks and Romans, while by the Egyptian priests it was
considered too unclean to be even looked upon; that it was used both for
its convenient shape and for its sacred associations in all elections by
ballot; that this custom lasted in England and in most Europeans
countries to a very recent date in the election of the kings and queens
at Twelfth Night and other feasts; and that it was of great repute in
all popular divinations and love charms. I find in Miller another use of
Beans, which we are thankful to note among the obsolete uses: "They are
bought up in great quantities at Bristol for Guinea ships, as food for
the negroes on their passage from Africa to the West Indies."
As an ornamental garden plant the Bean has never received the attention
it seems to deserve. A plant of Broad Beans grown singly is quite a
stately plant, and the rich scent is an additional attraction to many,
though to many others it is too strong, and it has a bad
character--"Sleep in a Bean-field all night if you want to have awful
dreams or go crazy," is a Leicestershire proverb:[34:3] and the Scarlet
Runner (which is also a Bean) is one of the most beautiful climbers we
have. In England we seldom grow it for ornament, but in France I have
seen it used with excellent effect to cover a trellis-screen, mixed with
the large blue Convolvulus major.
FOOTNOTES:
[34:1] Chaucer, "The Marchandes Tale," 19.
[34:2] Ibid., "The Man of Lawes Tale," prologue.
[34:3] Copied from the mediæval proverb: "Cum faba florescit, stultorum
copia crescit."
BILBERRY.
_Pistol._
Where fires thou find'st unraked and hearths unswept,
There pinch the maids as blue as Bilberry--
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
_Merry Wives_, act v, sc. 5 (48).
The Bilberry is a common British shrub found on all mossy heaths, and
very pretty both in flower and in fruit. Its older English name was
Heathberry, and its botanical name is Vaccinium myrtillus. We have in
Britain four species of Vaccinium: the Whortleberry or Bilberry (_V.
myrtillus_), the Large Bilberry (_V. uliginosum_), the Crowberry (_V.
vitis idæa_), and the Cranberry (_V. oxycoccos_). These British species,
as well as the North American species (of which there are several), are
all beautiful little shrubs in cultivation, but they are very difficult
to grow; they require a heathy soil, moisture, and partial shade.
BIRCH.
_Duke._
Fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of Birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mock'd than fear'd.
_Measure for Measure_, act i, sc. 3 (23).
Shakespeare only mentions this one unpleasant use of the Birch tree, the
manufacture of Birch rods; and for such it seems to have been chiefly
valued in his day. "I have not red of any vertue it hath in physick,"
says Turner; "howbeit, it serveth for many good uses, and for none
better than for betynge of stubborn boys, that either lye or will not
learn." Yet the Birch is not without interest. The word "Birch" is the
same as "bark," meaning first the rind of a tree and then a barque or
boat (from which we also get our word "barge"), and so the very name
carries us to those early times when the Birch was considered one of
the most useful of trees, as it still is in most northern countries,
where it grows at a higher degree of latitude than any other tree. Its
bark was especially useful, being useful for cordage, and matting, and
roofing, while the tree itself formed the early British canoes, as it
still forms the canoes of the North American Indians, for which it is
well suited, from its lightness and ease in working.
In Northern Europe it is the most universal and the most useful of
trees. It is "the superlative tree in respect of the ground it covers,
and in the variety of purposes to which it is converted in Lapland,
where the natives sit in birchen huts on birchen chairs, wearing birchen
boots and breeches, with caps and capes of the same material, warming
themselves by fires of birchwood charcoal, reading books bound in birch,
and eating herrings from a birchen platter, pickled in a birchen cask.
Their baskets, boats, harness, and utensils are all of Birch; in short,
from cradle to coffin, the Birch forms the peculiar environment of the
Laplander."[36:1] In England we still admire its graceful beauty,
whether it grows in our woods or our gardens, and we welcome its
pleasant odour on our Russia leather bound books; but we have ceased to
make beer from its young shoots,[36:2] and we hold it in almost as low
repute (from the utilitarian point of view) as Turner and Shakespeare
seem to have held it.
FOOTNOTES:
[36:1] "Gardener's Chronicle."
[36:2] "Although beer is now seldom made from birchen twigs, yet it is
by no means an uncommon practice in some country districts to tap the
white trunks of Birches, and collect the sweet sap which exudes from
them for wine-making purposes. In some parts of Leicestershire this sap
is collected in large quantities every spring, and birch wine, when well
made, is a wholesome and by no means an unpleasant beverage."--B. in
_The Garden_, April, 1877. "The Finlanders substitute the leaves of
Birch for those of the tea-plant; the Swedes extract a syrup from the
sap, from which they make a spirituous liquor. In London they make
champagne of it. The most virtuous uses to which it is applied are
brooms and wooden shoes."--_A Tour Round My Garden_, Letter xix.
BITTER-SWEET, _see_ APPLE (22).
BLACKBERRIES.
(1) _Falstaff._
Give you a reason on compulsion!--if reasons were as plentiful
as Blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon
compulsion, I.[37:1]
_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (263).
(2) _Falstaff._
Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat
Blackberries?
_Ibid._ (450).
(3) _Thersites._
That same dog-fox Ulysses is not proved worth a Blackberry.
_Troilus and Cressida_, act v, sc. 4 (12).
(4) _Rosalind._
There is a man . . . . hangs odes upon Hawthorns and elegies
on Brambles.
_As You Like it_, act iii, sc. 2 (379).
(5)
The thorny Brambles and embracing bushes,
As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.
_Venus and Adonis_ (629).
I here join together the tree and the fruit, the Bramble (_Rubus
fruticosus_) and the Blackberry. There is not much to be said for a
plant that is the proverbial type of a barren country or untidy
cultivation, yet the Bramble and the Blackberry have their charms, and
we could ill afford to lose them from our hedgerows. The name Bramble
originally meant anything thorny, and Chaucer applied it to the Dog
Rose--
"He was chaste and no lechour,
And sweet as is the Bramble flower
That bereth the red hepe."
But in Shakespeare's time it was evidently confined to the
Blackberry-bearing Bramble.
There is a quaint legend of the origin of the plant which is worth
repeating. It is thus pleasantly told by Waterton: "The cormorant was
once a wool merchant. He entered into partnership with the Bramble and
the bat, and they freighted a large ship with wool; she was wrecked, and
the firm became bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about till
midnight to avoid his creditors, the cormorant is for ever diving into
the deep to discover its foundered vessel, while the Bramble seizes
hold of every passing sheep to make up his loss by stealing the wool."
As a garden plant, the common Bramble had better be kept out of the
garden, but there are double pink and white-blossomed varieties, and
others with variegated leaves, that are handsome plants on rough
rockwork. The little Rubus saxatilis is a small British Bramble that is
pretty on rockwork, and among the foreign Brambles there are some that
should on no account be omitted where ornamental shrubs are grown. Such
are the R. leucodermis from Nepaul, with its bright silvery bark and
amber-coloured fruit; R. Nootkanus, with very handsome foliage, and pure
white rose-like flowers; R. Arcticus, an excellent rockwork plant from
Northern Europe, with very pleasant fruit, but difficult to establish;
R. Australis (from New Zealand), a most quaint plant, with leaves so
depauperated that it is apparently leafless, and hardy in the South of
England; and R. deliciosus, a very handsome plant from the Rocky
Mountains. There are several others well worth growing, but I mention
these few to show that the Bramble is not altogether such a villainous
and useless weed as it is proverbially supposed to be.
FOOTNOTES:
[37:1] _See_ RAISINS, p. 238.
BOX.
_Maria._ Get ye all three into the Box tree.
_Twelfth Night_, act ii, sc. 5 (18).
The Box is a native British tree, and in the sixteenth century was
probably much more abundant as a wild tree than it is now. Chaucer notes
it as a dismal tree. He describes Palamon in his misery as--
"Like was he to byholde,
The Boxe tree or the Asschen deed and colde."
_The Knightes Tale._
Spenser noted it as "The Box yet mindful of his olde offence," and in
Shakespeare's time there were probably more woods of Box in England than
the two which still remain at Box Hill, in Surrey, and Boxwell, in
Gloucestershire. The name remains, though the trees are gone, in Box in
Wilts, Boxgrove, Boxley, Boxmoor, Boxted, and Boxworth.[39:1] From its
wild quarters the Box tree was very early brought into gardens, and was