HONEYSUCKLE 191 



its grace and delicious fragrance l rendering it a 

 general favourite : a visit to some rural woodland 

 will readily place us in possession of healthy young 

 plants, and these will quickly establish themselves 

 and cover a large surface, anything up to a run of 

 twenty feet or so being a pleasant probability. The 

 popular name, honeysuckle, is a testimony to the 

 wealth of nectar borne at the base of the fragrant 

 tubular flowers, which any country child will teach 

 us how to extract, 2 while the name woodbine, per- 

 haps less commonly used nowadays, was obviously 

 bestowed upon the plants from the binding power 

 of the stems. Shakespeare writes : " So doth the 

 Woodbine, the Sweet Honeysucke, gently entwist," 

 but one may often see the stems of hazel and other 

 hedgerow trees deeply furrowed from the constric- 

 tion that they have undergone a vigorous com- 

 pression that goes considerably beyond the gentle 

 adherence that is all that the poet admits. This 

 twining is in the same direction around the support- 



1 4< O'er-canopied with luscious woodbine." 



SHAKESPEARE. 



" Round the young ash its twining branches meet, 

 Or crown the hawthorn with its odours sweet." 



BLOOMFIELD. 



8 Those connoisseurs, the bees, ages ago discovered this 

 wealth of sweetness, and with ready zeal and tireless industry 

 rifle the flowers of their treasure. Thomson, it will be re- 

 called, notes how " the bee strays diligent " and loads himself 

 " with the extracted balm of fragrant woodbine." 



