486 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
was, indeed, the common name for rue in Shakspeare’s time; and Greene, in 
his Quip for an upstart Courtier, has this passage : —“ Some of them smiled, and 
said rue was called herb-grace, which, though they scorned in their youth, 
they might wear in their age, and that it was never too late to say miserere.” 
The gardener in Richard IT. says of the Queen,— 
** Here did she drop a tear; here in this place, 
1’ll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace : 
Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen, 
In the remembrance of a weeping queen.” 
Perdita, in The Winter’s Tale, says,— 
** Reverend sirs, 
For you there ’s rosemary and rue ; these,keep 
Seeming and savour all the winter long : 
Grace and remembrance be to you both.’’ 
They are both evergreens, retaining their appearance and taste during the 
whole year, and, therefore, are proper emblems of remembrance and grace. 
Rue seems to have been used formerly in nosegays; for the Clown, in APs ~ 
Well that Ends Well, having said of the Countess, “ She was the sweet-marjo- 
ram of the salad, or rather the herb of grace,” Lafeu replies, “ They are not 
salad herbs, you knave, they are nose herbs ;” upon which the Clown, in cha- 
racter, remarks, “Iam no great Nebuchadnezzar, Sir, [have not much skill in 
grass ;” thus punning upon the name of grace, as the gardener did upon the 
other name of rue. (Don’sMill.,i. p. 779.) “ Among the ancients, rue was used in 
several superstitious practices: ‘ You are not yet at the parsley, nor even at 
the rue,’ was a common saying with the Greeks to those persons who, having 
projected an enterprise, had not begun to put it in execution. In ancient times, 
gardens were edged with borders of parsley and rue; and those persons who 
had not passed these borders were not accounted to have entered a garden: 
thence the proverb originated.” (Reid’s Historical and Literary Boiany, p. 153.) 
Physiological Phenomenon. “ Linnzus having observed that the rue moved 
one of its stamens every day to the pistil, Sir James Smith examined the Ruta 
angustifolia, and found many of the stamens in the position which he describes, 
holding their anthers over the stigma; while those which had not come to the 
stigma were lying back upon the petals, as well as those which had already per- 
formed their office,and had returned to theiroriginalsituation. Trying with aquill 
to stimulate the stamens, he found them all quite void of irritability: they are 
strong, stout, conical bodies, and cannot, without breaking, be forced out of 
the position in which they happen to be. The same phenomenon has been ob- 
served in several other flowers; but it is nowhere more striking, or more easily 
examined, than in the species of rue.” (Don’s Mill,,i. p. 779.) 
The Rue as a hardy Shrub, Though the rue is seldom seen in British gar- 
dens otherwise than as an herb of 1 ft. or 13 ft. in height, yet when planted 
in dry, deep, calcareous soil, and suffered to grow without being cut over, 
it forms a singularly handsome evergreen shrub, attaining the height of 6ft., 
or even 8 ft.,in as many years. The manner in which the leaves are cut, 
their glaucous hue, the profusion of fine dark yellow flowers, which are pro- 
duced for several months in succession, and often throughout the whole winter, 
justify us in strongly recommending the rue for cultivation as an ornamental 
plant. It will not succeed, however, if mixed with other trees and shrubs of 
rampant growth, nor attain a large size, unless in a sheltered situation, and in 
a soil that is deep, free, and calcareous. It forms beautiful evergreen separation 
hedges for cottage gardens ; and some fine hedges of this sort, and also large 
single plants, may be seen in the bottoms of old chalk-pits on the south bank 
of the Thames, about Gravesend, in Kent. The plant is propagated in the 
easiest manner, by seeds or cuttings, and requires no other pruning during its 
whole existence than cutting off the withered flower-stalks. It appears to be 
a shrub of very great durability. In point of ultimate magnitude, rate of 
growth, soil, situation, and culture, the rosemary, the lavender, the sage, the 
hyssop, the thyme, and the more hardy teucriums may be considered as 
suitable associates for the rue. 
