42 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
Camomile, 
Though the Camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet 
youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. 
1 st Henry IV, ii. 4, 443. 
The low-growing Camomile, the emblem of the sweetness 
of humility, has the lofty names of Camomile ( Chamcemelum , 
i. e. Apple of the Earth) and Anthemis nobilis. Its fine aromatic 
scent and bitter flavour suggested that it must be possessed of 
much medicinal virtue, while its low growth made it suitable 
for planting on the edges of flower-beds and paths, its scent 
being brought out as it was walked upon. For this purpose it 
was much used in Elizabethan gardens; “large walks, broad 
and long, close and open, like the Tempe groves in Thessaly, 
raised with gravel and sand, having seats and banks of Camo¬ 
mile ; all this delights the mind, and brings health to the 
body.” 1 As a garden flower it is now little used, though its 
bright starry flower and fine scent might recommend it; but it 
is still to be found in herb gardens, and is still, though not so 
much as formerly, used as a medicine. 
Like many other low plants, the Camomile is improved by 
being pressed into the earth by rolling or otherwise, and there 
are many allusions to this in the old writers : thus Lily in his 
“ Euphues ” says : “The Camomile the more it is trodden and 
pressed down, the more it spreadethand in the play, “The 
More the Merrier” (1608), we have— 
‘‘The Camomile shall teach thee patience 
Which riseth best when trodden most upon.” 
Cart»uus, see idols TOtetle. 
1 Lawson, “New Orchard,” p. 54. 
