33 



first time last year. I d^vell on these points in connection with 

 heath, furze, whin, or gorse, because of the names themselves I 

 can give no account. They are very ancient, and all that the 

 etymologists can tell us about them is that they are very obscure. 

 Many plants get their names from the time of year m which 

 they flower. Thus we have the Christmas rose, the Lent lily, the 

 Pasque, or Easter flower, the Michaelmas daisy, the Cuckooflower, 

 the flowers named after the Saints, as S. John's wort, S. Peter's 

 wort S. James's wort ; but we have only one flower that bears the 

 name of a month, the beautiful May. Our ancestors always spoke 

 of the Mayflower, uever simply the May as we do, and they never 

 applied the name to the tree as we do ; that was always the haw- 

 thorn, a tree much loved of our old poets, and which they especially 

 appropriated to languishing shepherds who are always supposed to 



tell their tale, 

 Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

 And you may remember poor Henry VI., longing for such a life : 

 Gives not the hawthorn hush a sweeter shade 

 To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, 

 Than doth a rich embroidered canopy- 

 To kings that fear their subjects treachery ? 

 Oh yes, it doth, a thousand fold it doth. 

 But besides its poetical interest the name itself is interesting, for 

 the "haw" is the same word as " hedge," and so shows the great 

 antiquity of this plant for English hedges. In the northern 

 countries "haws" are still called " haigs," but whether hawthorn 

 was first applied to the fruit or the hedge ; whether the hedge was 

 80 called because it was made of the thorn-tree that bears the 

 haws ; or whether the fruit was so named because it was borne on 

 the hedge-tree, is a point on which the learned diff^er, and I cannot 

 decide. 



Other plants again are named from the places in which they 

 grow. Of this we have instances in the Cheddar Pink, confined to 

 Cheddar, in Great Britain, and found very sparingly in other parts 

 of Europe; the Deptford Pink; the Canterbury and Coventry 

 Bells, which, however, are not confined to Canterbury or 

 Coventry ; the Cornish Moneywort, chiefly confined to ComwaU, 



