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The Plant-Lore & Garden-Craft of Shakespeare, a non-fiction book by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe |
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Part 1. The Plant-Lore Of Shakespeare - Lime, Ling, Locusts, Long Purples |
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_ PART I. THE PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE LIME, LING, LOCUSTS, LONG PURPLES
It is only in comparatively modern times that the old name of Line or Linden, or Lind,[146:1] has given place to Lime. The tree is a doubtful native, but has been long introduced, perhaps by the Romans. It is a very handsome tree when allowed room, but it bears clipping well, and so is very often tortured into the most unnatural shapes. It was a very favourite tree with our forefathers to plant in avenues, not only for its rapid growth, but also for the delicious scent of its flowers; but the large secretions of honey-dew which load the leaves, and the fact that it comes late into leaf and sheds its leaves very early, have rather thrown it out of favour of late years. As a useful tree it does not rank very high, except for wood-carvers, who highly prize its light, easily-cut wood, that keeps its shape, and is very little liable to crack or split either in the working or afterwards. Nearly all Grinling Gibbons' delicate carving is in Lime wood. To gardeners the Lime is further useful as furnishing the material for bast or bazen mats,[147:1] which are made from its bark, and interesting as being the origin of the name of Linnaeus.
[146:1] "Be ay of chier as light as lyf on Lynde."--CHAUCER, The Clerkes Tale, l'envoi. [147:1] "Between the barke and the woode of this tree, there bee thin pellicles or skins lying in many folds together, whereof are made bands and cords called Bazen ropes."--PHILEMON HOLLAND'S Pliny's Nat. Hist. xvi. 14. The chapter is headed "Of the Line or Linden Tree."
If this be the correct reading (and not Long Heath) the reference is to the Heather or Common Ling (Calluna vulgaris). This is the plant that is generally called Ling in the South of England, but in the North of England the name is given to the Cotton Grass (Eriophorum). It is very probable, however, that no particular plant is intended, but that it means any rough, wild vegetation, especially of open moors and heaths.
The Locust is the fruit of the Carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua), a tree that grows naturally in many parts of the South of Europe, the Levant, and Syria, and is largely cultivated for its fruit.[148:1] These are like Beans, full of sweet pulp, and are given in Spain and other southern countries to horses, pigs, and cattle, and they are occasionally imported into England for the same purpose. The Carob was cultivated in England before Shakespeare's time. "They grow not in this countrie," says Lyte, "yet, for all that, they be sometimes in the gardens of some diligent Herboristes, but they be so small shrubbes that they can neither bring forth flowers nor fruite." It was also grown by Gerard, and Shakespeare may have seen it; but it is now very seldom seen in any collection, though the name is preserved among us, as the jeweller's carat weight is said to have derived its name from the Carob Beans, which were used for weighing small objects. The origin of the tree being called Locust is a little curious. Readers of the New Testament, ignorant of Eastern customs, could not understand that St. John could feed on the insect locust, which, however, is now known to be a common and acceptable article of food, so they looked about for some solution of their difficulty, and decided that the Locusts were the tender shoots of the Carob tree, and that the wild honey was the luscious juice of the Carob fruit. Having got so far it was easy to go farther, and so the Carob soon got the names of St. John's Bread and St. John's Beans, and the monks of the desert showed the very trees by which St. John's life was supported. But though the Carob tree did not produce the locusts on which St. John fed, there is little or no doubt that "the husks which the swine did eat," and which the Prodigal Son longed for, were the produce of the Carob tree.
[148:1] Pods of the Carob tree were found in a house at Pompeii. For an account of the use of the Locust as an article of food, both in ancient and modern times, see Hogg's "Classical Plants of Sicily," p. 114.
In "Flowers from Stratford-on-Avon" (a pretty book published a few years ago with plates of twelve of Shakespeare's flowers) it is said that "there can be no doubt that the Wild Arum is the plant alluded to by Shakespeare as forming part of the nosegay of the crazed Ophelia;" but the authoress gives no authority for this statement, and I believe that there can be no reasonable doubt that the Long Purples and Dead Men's Fingers are the common purple Orchises of the woods and meadows (Orchis morio, O. mascula, and O. maculata). The name of Dead Men's Fingers was given to them from the pale palmate roots of some of the species (O. latifolia, O. maculata, and Gymnadenia conopsea), and this seems to have been its more common name.
As to the other names to which the Queen alludes, we need not inquire too curiously; they are given in all their "liberality" and "grossness" in the old Herbals, but as common names they are, fortunately, extinct. The name of Dead Men's Fingers still lingers in a few places, but Long Purples has been transferred to a very different plant. It is named by Clare and Tennyson--
--- CLARE'S Village Minstrel, ii, 90.
--- A Dirge, TENNYSON.
The meadow Orchis, though so common, is thus without any common English name; for though I have often asked country people for its name, I have never obtained one; and so it is another of those curious instances which are so hard to explain, where an old and common English word has been replaced by a Greek or Latin word, which must be entirely without meaning to nine-tenths of those who use it.[150:1] There are similar instances in Crocus, Cyclamen, Hyacinth, Narcissus, Anemone, Beet, Lichen, Polyanthus, Polypody, Asparagus, and others. The Orchid family is certainly the most curious in the vegetable kingdom, as it is almost the most extensive, except the Grasses. Growing all over the world, in any climate, and in all kinds of situations, it numbers 3000 species, of which we have thirty-seven native species in England; and with their curious irregular flowers, often of very beautiful colours, and of wonderful quaintness and variety of shape, they are everywhere so distinct that the merest tyro in botany can separate them from any other flower, and the deepest student can find endless puzzles in them, and increasing interest. Though the most beautiful are exotics, and are the chief ornaments of our stoves and hothouses, yet our native species are full of interest and beauty. Of their botanical interest we have a most convincing proof in Darwin's "Fertilization of Orchids," a book that is almost entirely confined to the British Orchids, and which, in its wonderfully clear statements, and its laborious collection of many little facts all leading up to his scientific conclusions, is certainly not the least to be admired among his other learned and careful books. And as to their horticultural interest, it is most surprising that so few gardeners make the use of them that they might. They were not so despised in Shakespeare's time, for Gerard grew a large number in his garden. It is true that some of them are very impatient of garden cultivation, especially those of the Ophrys section (such as the Bee, Fly, and Spider Orchises), and the rare O. hircina, which will seldom remain in the garden above two or three years, except under very careful and peculiar cultivation. But, on the other hand, there are many that rejoice in being transferred to a garden, especially O. maculata, O. mascula, O. pyramidalis, and the Butterfly Orchis of both kinds (Habenaria bifolia and chlorantha). These, if left undisturbed, increase in size and beauty every year, their flowers become larger, and their leaves (in O. maculata and O. mascula) become most beautifully spotted. They may be placed anywhere, but their best place seems to be among low shrubs, or on the rockwork. Nor must the hardy Orchid grower omit the beautiful American species, especially the Cypripedia (C. spectabile, C. pubescens, C. acaule, and others). They are among the most beautiful of low hardy plants, and they succeed perfectly in any peat border that is not too much exposed to the sun. The only caution required is to leave them undisturbed; they resent removal and broken roots; and though I hold it to be one of the first rules of good gardening to give away to others as much as possible, yet I would caution any one against dividing his good clumps of Cypripedia. The probability is that both giver and receiver will lose the plants. If, however, a plant must be divided, the whole plant should be carefully lifted, and most gently pulled to pieces with the help of water.
[150:1] Though country people generally have no common name for the Orchis morio, yet it is called in works on English Botany the Fool Orchis; and it has the local names of "Crake-feet" in Yorkshire; of "giddy-gander" in Dorset; and "Keatlegs and Neatlegs" in Kent. Dr. Prior also gives the names "Goose and goslings" and "Gander-gooses" for Orchis morio, and "Standerwort" for Orchis mascula. This last is the Anglo-Saxon name for the flower, but it is now, I believe, quite extinct.
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