PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
33 
Burbocft ant> JSurs. 
(1) Celia. They arc but Burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery'; 
if we walk not in the trodden paths our very petticoats will catch 
them. 
Rosalind. I could shake them off my coat; these Burs are in my 
heart.— As You Like It , i. 3, 13. 
(2) Nay, friar, I am a kind of Bur; I shall stick. 
Measure for Measure , iv. 3, 149. 
(3) Hang off, thou cat, thou Burr. 
Midsummer Night's Dream , iii. 2, 260. 
(4) They are Burs, I can tell you ; they’ll stick where they are thrown. 
Troilus and Cressida , iii. 2, 118. 
(5) And nothing teems 
But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs. 
Henry V, v. 2, 51. 
(6) Crown’d with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds, 
With Burdocks, Hemlock, Nettles, Cuckoo-flowers. 
King Lear, iv. 4, 3. 
The Burs are the unopened flowers of the Burdock (.Arctium 
lappa), and their clinging quality very early obtained for them 
expressive names, such as amor folia , love leaves, and philan- 
tropium . This clinging quality arises from the bracts of the 
involucrum being long and stiff, and with hooked tips which 
attach themselves to every passing object. The Burdock is a 
very handsome plant when seen in its native habitat by the 
side of a brook, its broad leaves being most picturesque, but it 
is not a plant to introduce into a garden. 1 There is another 
tribe of plants, however, which are sufficiently ornamental to 
merit a place in the garden, and whose Burs are even more 
1 “ A Clote-leef he had under his hood 
For swoot, and to keep his heed from hete.” 
Chaucer, Prologue of the Chanotmes Yeman , 25. 
This Clote leaf is by many considered to be the Burdock leaf, but it may 
have been the name of the Water-lily. 
