The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare Part 14

(5) _Burgundy._

And nothing teems But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs.

_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51).

(6) _Cordelia._

Crown'd with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds, With Burdocks, Hemlock, Nettles, Cuckoo-flowers.

_King Lear_, act iv, sc. 4 (3).

The Burs are the unopened flowers of the Burdock (_Arctium lappa_), and their clinging quality very early obtained for them expressive names, such as _amor folia_, love leaves, and philantropium. This clinging quality arises from the bracts of the involucrum being long and stiff, and with hooked tips which attach themselves to every pa.s.sing object.

The Burdock is a very handsome plant when seen in its native habitat by the side of a brook, its broad leaves being most picturesque, but it is not a plant to introduce into a garden.[44:1] There is another tribe of plants, however, which are sufficiently ornamental to merit a place in the garden, and whose Burs are even more clinging than those of the Burdock. These are the Acaenas; they are mostly natives of America and New Zealand, and some of them (especially A. sarmentosa and A.

microphylla) form excellent carpet plants, but their points being furnished with double hooks, like a double-barbed arrow, they have double powers of clinging.

BURNET.

_Burgundy._

The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and green Clover.

_Henry V._ act v, sc. 2 (48).

The Burnet (_Poterium sanguisorba_) is a native plant of no great beauty or horticultural interest, but it was valued as a good salad plant, the leaves tasting of Cuc.u.mber, and Lord Bacon (contemporary with Shakespeare) seems to have been especially fond of it. He says ("Essay of Gardens"):

"Those flowers which perfume the air most delightfully, not pa.s.sed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three--that is, Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water Mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread." Drayton had the same affection for it--

"The Burnet shall bear up with this, Whose leaf I greatly fancy."

_Nymphal V._

It also was, and still is, valued as a forage plant that will grow and keep fresh all the winter in dry barren pastures, thus often giving food for sheep when other food was scarce. It has occasionally been cultivated, but the result has not been very satisfactory, except on very poor land, though, according to the Woburn experiments, as reported by Sinclair, it contains a larger amount of nutritive matter in the spring than most of the Gra.s.ses. It has brown flowers, from which it is supposed to derive its name (Brunetto).[45:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[44:1]

"A Clote-leef he had under his hood For swoot, and to keep his heed from hete."

CHAUCER, _Prologue of the Chanounes Yeman_ (25).

This Clote leaf is by many considered to be the Burdock leaf, but it was more probably the name of the Water-lily.

[45:1] "Burnet colowre, Burnetum, burnetus."--_Promptorium Parvulorum._

CABBAGE.

_Evans._

_Pauca verba_, Sir John; good worts.

_Falstaff._

Good worts! good Cabbage.

_Merry Wives_, act i, sc. 1 (123).

The history of the name is rather curious. It comes to us from the French _Chou cabus_, which is the French corruption of _Caulis capitatus_, the name by which Pliny described it.

The Cabbage of Shakespeare's time was essentially the same as ours, and from the contemporary accounts it seems that the sorts cultivated were as good and as numerous as they are now. The cultivated Cabbage is the same specifically as the wild Cabbage of our sea-sh.o.r.es (_Bra.s.sica oleracea_) improved by cultivation. Within the last few years the Cabbage has been brought from the kitchen garden into the flower garden on account of the beautiful variegation of its leaves. This, however, is no novelty, for Parkinson said of the many sorts of Cabbage in his day: "There is greater diversity in the form and colour of the leaves of this plant than there is in any other that I know groweth on the ground. . . . Many of them being of no use with us for the table, but for delight to behold the wonderful variety of the works of G.o.d herein."

CAMOMILE.

_Falstaff._

Though the Camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears.

_1st Henry IV_, act ii, sc. 4 (443).

The low-growing Camomile, the emblem of the sweetness of humility, has the lofty names of Camomile (_Chamaemelum_, _i.e._, Apple of the Earth) and Anthemis n.o.bilis. Its fine aromatic scent and bitter flavour suggested that it must be possessed of much medicinal virtue, while its low growth made it suitable for planting on the edges of flower-beds and paths, its scent being brought out as it was walked upon. For this purpose it was much used in Elizabethan gardens; "large walks, broad and long, close and open, like the Tempe groves in Thessaly, raised with gravel and sand, having seats and banks of Camomile; all this delights the mind, and brings health to the body."[46:1] As a garden flower it is now little used, though its bright starry flower and fine scent might recommend it; but it is still to be found in herb gardens, and is still, though not so much as formerly, used as a medicine.

Like many other low plants, the Camomile is improved by being pressed into the earth by rolling or otherwise, and there are many allusions to this in the old writers: thus Lily in his "Euphues" says: "The Camomile the more it is trodden and pressed down, the more it spreadeth;" and in the play, "The More the Merrier" (1608), we have--

"The Camomile shall teach thee patience Which riseth best when trodden most upon."

FOOTNOTES:

[46:1] Lawson, "New Orchard," p. 54.

CARDUUS, _see_ HOLY THISTLE.