132 WILD FLOWEBS OF 



" dead-men's fingers," by which the " cold maids ' 

 designated the flowers of the plant, might seem to 

 decide the question in favour of the Arum, as the 

 flowers of the Orchis would scarcely suggest such an 

 idea ; though the flabby club of the Arum does present 

 such an analogy. In fact, curiously enough, we have 

 actually in the present day, heard "cold" country 

 damsels, who probably had never heard of the existence 

 of Shakspeare, call the Arum by this very name of 

 " dead men's fingers."* The cluster of scarlet berries, 

 which ripens in the autumn after the spadix is totally 

 withered, is not by common observers generally con- 

 sidered to have sprung from those minute bead-like 

 ovaria below the pollen-bearing organs, that in the 

 early spring, pale, wan, and delicate, charmed the eye 

 in contrast with the deep purple club, at whose base 

 they are so symmetrically ranged. In unclouded sun- 

 shine a fetid scent sometimes arises from the hood or 

 spatha of the arum, not observable under other cir- 

 cumstances. 



But we have wandered through the floral mazes of 

 April amidst inspiring sunny gleams, and we quit them 



* It is however rather curious, that both to the Arum and the Orchis, 

 liberal shepherds give a grosser name, as SHAKSPEARE says, and both are 

 abundantly conspicuous in the spring. In an old English MS. which was 

 published as a curiosity in the Archceologia, the Arum is made to figure as 

 an herb of power under the name of "Dragance " and " Nedderistonge," 

 and it is there asserted that if the hands are well washed in its juice 

 " Yu schalt Nedderis [Adders] withoutyn peryle 



Gaderyn and handelyn hem at thi wylle." 



Under the influence of a hot sun, a very foetid snake-like scent rises from 

 the spatha of the Arum. Its fine shining leaves sometimes thickly spotted 

 with black, emerge from the ground with the first mild days of February, 

 when the rustic term "Wake-Robin" seems not inappropriate, but the 

 foliage withers away before the sun of June, so that the cluster of red fruit 

 stands at last lonely and desolate, revealed beneath every hedge, a prey 

 to every passer by, 



