327 



March, and in April it is pretty general on indifferent pastures, in wet woods, in 

 shady lanes, and even on the roadside. Bishop Mant wrote of it : 



In that broad field of springing grass, 



First of his lip and hornfed class. 



The early-flowering Orchis sbow'd 



His smooth and spotted leaves ; and glow'd. 



With spiky stalk elate, and head 



Of spiral blossoms, purple red. 



It is generally admitted that the 0. «ia«ci(?a is the flower referred to by Shakespeare 

 in Hamlet, Act iv., Scene 7, at the meeting of the Queen and Laertes, when she 

 tells him of the death of Ophelia. 



Queen : "Your sister's drowned, Laertes ! " 



Zaer^es :" Drowned ! 0, where ? " 



Queen : "There is a willow grows ascaunt the brook. 



That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. 



There, with fantastic garlands, did she come. 



Of crow flowers, nettles, daisies, and lonrj-purplcs. 



That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 



But our cold maids do dead men'sfiiigers call them." 



The name which Shakespeare delicately hints at, and the other name which he 

 cites, have both been preserved in old herbals. They are unquestionably Orchids. 

 They could not apply to any other class in the floral world. The identity of the 

 " long purples " with the Orchis family has thus been fixed by Shakespeare 

 himself.* He did not write with the precision of a botanist, but with the freedom 

 of a poet. It is probable that he did not know the scientific distinction between 

 one species and another. He looked upon flowers as "charming factors in the 

 general loveliness of nature," and he did not hesitate to use their common well- 

 known popular names. "Dead men's fingers" was the vulgar name applied to 

 0. macidata, 0. latifolia, and Gymnadenia conopsea, because of their peculiarly- 

 shaped, pale, palmate tubers (specimens shown), which are supposed to bear 

 certain resemblances to the human hand. There is a touching old ballad that 

 tells of the sorrows of a maiden who had lost her lover by death, and this name, 

 with a slight variation, occurs in one of the stanzas : 



Then round the meddowes did she walke, 

 Catching each flower by the stalke. 

 Such as within the meddowes grew. 

 As Dead man's thumb and Harebell blew ; 

 And as she pluckt them, still cried she, 

 'Alas ! there's none e'er loved like me.' 



— Boxburghe Ballads. 



10. Orchis Morio. Green-winged Meadow Orchis. In our county this is 

 perhaps almost as universal and common as the preceding. It used to be called 

 the "Fool's Orchis" in my boyhood, because heedless and unobservant people were 



* Warburton, who wrote about a century ago, says " ' Long purples ' is the vulgar appellation 

 for a beautiful species of wild flowers. Their botanical name is Orchis." 



