40 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
giving food for sheep when other food was scarce. It has 
occasionally been cultivated, but the result has not been very 
satisfactory, except on very poor land, though, according to the 
Woburn experiments, as reported by Sinclair, it contains a 
larger amount of nutiitive matter in the spring than most of 
the Grasses. It has brown flowers, from which it is supposed 
to derive its name (Brunetto). 1 
1 “Burnet colowre, Burnetum, burnetus .”—Promptoruim Parvulonim. 
