PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
29 
England we seldom grow it for ornament, but in France I have 
seen it used with excellent effect to cover a trellis-screen, mixed 
with the large blue Convolvulus major. 
JBilben'B. 
Where fires thou find’st unraked and hearths unswept, 
There pinch the maids as blue as Bilberry— 
Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery. 
Merry Wives, v. 5, 48. 
The Bilberry is a common British shrub found on all mossy 
heaths, and very pretty both in flower and in fruit. Its older 
English name was Heathberry, and its botanical name is 
Vaccinium myrtilliis. We have in Britain four species of 
Vaccinium: the Whortleberry or Bilberry ( V myrlillus ), the 
Large Bilberry ( V uliginosum ), the Crowberry ( V vitis idcea ), 
and the Cranberry ( V. oxycoccos ). These British species, as 
well as the North American species (of which there are several), 
are all beautiful little shrubs in cultivation, but they are very 
difficult to grow; they require a heathy soil, moisture, and 
partial shade. 
Bivcb. 
Fond fathers, 
Having bound up the threatening twigs of Birch, 
Only to stick it in their children’s sight 
For terror, not to use, in time the rod 
Becomes more mock’d than fear’d. 
Measure for Measure , i. 3, 23. 
Shakespeare only mentions this one unpleasant use of the 
Birch tree, the manufacture of Birch rods; and for such it 
seems to have been chiefly valued in his day. “ I have not 
red of any vertue it hath in physick,” says Turner; “howbeit, 
it serveth for many good uses, and for none better than for 
betynge of stubborn boys, that either lye or will not learn.” 
Yet the Birch is not without interest. The word “Birch” is 
the same as “bark,” meaning first the rind of a tree and then 
