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 miserei'e" 

 The gardener in Richard II. says of the Queen, 



" Here did she drop a tear ; here in this place, 

 I '11 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 All's 

 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, " I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, Sir, I 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.,\. 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 Botany, p. 153.) 



Physiological Phenomenon. " Linnaeus 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 theiroriginal situation. Trying with a quill 

 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 1 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 6 ft., 

 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 tcucriums may be considered as 

 suitable associates for the rue. 



