INTRODUCTION 
xv 
will pick us famous Strawberries from the garden of my Lord 
of Ely in Holborn; he will pick us White and Red Roses from 
the garden of the Temple; and he will pick us “ Apricocks 
from the royal garden of Richard the Second’s sad queen. I 
propose to follow Shakespeare into these many pleasant spots, 
and to pick each flower and note each plant which he has 
thought worthy of notice. I do not propose to make a selec¬ 
tion of his plants, for that would not give a proper idea of the 
extent of his knowledge, but to note every tree, and plant, and 
flower that he has noted. And as I pick each flower, I shall 
let Shakespeare first tell us all he has to say about it; in other 
words, I shall quote every passage in which he names the plant 
or flower; for here, again, it would not do to make a selec¬ 
tion from the passages, my object not being to give “floral 
extracts,” but let him say all he can in his own choice words. 
There is not much difficulty in this, but there is difficulty in 
determining how much or how little to quote. On the one 
hand, it often seems cruel to cut short a noble passage in the 
midst of which some favourite flower is placed; but, on the 
other hand, to quote at too great a length would extend the 
book beyond reasonable limits. The rule, therefore, must be 
to confine the quotations within as small a space as possible, 
only taking care that the space is not so small as entirely to 
spoil the beauty of the description. Then, having listened to 
all that Shakespeare has to say on each flower, I shall follow 
with illustrations (few and short) from contemporary writers 
then with any observations that may present themselves in 
the identification of Shakespeare’s plant with their modern 
representatives, finishing each with anything in the history 
or modern uses or cultivation of the plant that I think will 
interest readers. 
For the identification of the plants, we have an excellent 
and trustworthy guide in John Gerard, who was almost an 
exact contemporary of Shakespeare. Gerard’s life ranged from 
1545 to 1612, and Shakespeare’s from 1564 to 1616. Whether 
they were acquainted or not we do not know, but it is cer¬ 
tainly not improbable that they were; I should think it almost 
