mentioned by Shakspeare. 89 
«There is a willow grows ascant the brook, 
That shews bis hoar leaves in the glassy stream ; 
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make 
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, 
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, 
But our cold maids do dead-men’s fingers call them.”’—Hamlet,iv.7. 
f The common blue-bells, to which my late excellent friend, 
R.A. Salisbury, Esq. attached the epithet of festalis, might 
; say be thought to be the garland-flower of Ophelia; but 
ightfoot says it is the Orchis mascula, though Martyn con- 
siders that the name of Dead-men’s fingers would better apply 
to the palmated species. Lightfoot, thinking probably that 
he had discovered the liberal name, may have supposed, upon 
this foundation alone, that the plant was an orchis. What 
this liberal name is in reality may be known to gentle shep- 
herds, but by me is only supposed to be the same which 
Dampier has applied to a South American tree, whose flowers 
may perhaps resemble those of our digitalis in form, if not in 
colour. n Hampshire, the Lotus corniculatus is called 
__ dead-men’s fingers, but in the vicinity of Bristol the plant 
has various names; fingers and toes, devil’s fingers, devil’s 
claws, and crow-toes. ‘The last seems to point it out as the 
tufted crow-toe of Milton’s Lycidas. Gerard, however, in his 
Index, applies this name to the hyacinth, which, by Johnson, 
in his supplementary Appendix to his edition of Gerard, is 
led crow-leek. 
_ Gerard gives the name of 
_ Crow-flowers to the Lychnis floscuculi, while to another 
species, the dioica, he has attached that of crow-soap, which 
x latter, in Johnson's appendix, is made synonymous with Sapo- 
_ maria, or soapwort. think none of these were the crow- 
flowers of the poet. The Caltha palustris is called by that 
‘name in this part of the country, and is much used by children 
in their garlands and festivities, together with the flowers of 
Ranunculus bulbosus and R. acris, which are called Craysies 
and Mayfiowers. ‘The latter term in Middlesex is given to 
_ the Iris palustris. In Essex, the flowers called May are those 
of the Prunus spinosa, rather than the Crateegus oxyacantha. 
This discrepancy in our English names may be considered 
as a reproach to science ; but the botanist, who delights in 
the contemplation and study of wild words as well as wild 
flowers, may find an ample field, or rather garden, for his 
erudition, in comparing the synonymes of British and Euro- 
pean plants, especially those whose faculties were discovered 
and appreciated by our experienced and benevolent ances- 
, who extended their researches 
To every herb that sips the dew.’’ 
4 
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