XCVIII— LADY’S-SMOCK. 
Cardamine pratetisis Linne. 
A fter the depression of flowerless winter, our eyes rejoice in the brightness of 
any patch of colour in the landscape, even the palest. It is thus the season 
of spring, 
“ When lady-smocks, all silver-white, 
Do paint the meadows with delight," 
rather than any great beauty of form or colour in the flower itself, that has made this 
so popular a plant. That it has long been popular is shown by the great number of 
vernacular names that it bears. Characteristic of wet undrained meadow land, once 
much more common than it is to-day, it is sometimes even known simply as 
Meadow ; whilst our ancestors, constantly testing the adaptability of wild plants for 
food, recognised its botanical affinities by the name Medetarde, an early form for 
Meadow Cress. Its blossoms, “ somewhat dasht over with blush,” as Parkinson 
puts it, “ and many times but at the edges onely,” have earned the names of Pink, 
Spink, or Bog-spinks ; but as seen in the mass they are white enough to be called 
Milkmaids, Lady's Milk sile (soil), and Lady s-smock. The season of flowering — 
from the middle of March to the end of May — naturally associated it, especially if 
we allow for the change of Style in our almanacs, with Lady Day, or Lady-tide, as 
the days before and after the feast were called, and with the coming of the cuckoo. 
Whether we adopt the older spelling Ladye-smock, or the more modern Lady s-smock, 
the first half of the name is clearly in the possessive case ; and in former days linen 
lying on the grass to bleach was a far more familiar sight than it is to-day ; but in 
spite of the absence of any evidence of the use of the name as Our Lady’s Smock, 
we think the season of flowering strongly favours this original. It may even explain 
such an apparently inappropriate name as Canterbury Bells, which Gerard says was in 
use in Norfolk in his time ; since Chaucer has shown us that 
“Whan that Aprille with his schowres swoote 
The drought of Marche hath perced to the roote, 
Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, 
And specially, from every schires ende 
Of Engelond, to Cantarbury they wende " ; 
in other words, there was a spring season when pilgrimages to Canterbury were the 
fashion. As for such names as Cuckoo-bread or the Somerset Gookoo-buttons, and the 
Welsh Cuckoo's Shoes and Stockings, these are obviously the outcome of the playful 
fancy of children ; and we are told that in the last the whiter flowers are the 
stockings and the pink ones the shoes. The Latin name Cardamine is taken from 
the Greek of Dioscorides KapBapivT), kardamine, which was applied to some kind 
of cress, and has been derived from KapSia, kardia, the heart, and Sapdeo, damao, I 
tame, in reference to some supposed medicinal virtues. The flowers of Lady’s- 
smcck, whether fresh or dried, have been reported to be a cure for epilepsy ; but. 
