XIV 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
poems are all professedly about the country—they abound in 
woods and vales, shepherds and swains—yet in all his poems 
there is scarcely a single allusion to a flower in a really natural 
way. And because Shakespeare only introduces flowers in 
their right place, and in the most purely natural way, there is 
one necessary result. I shall show that the number of flowers 
he introduces is large, but the number he omits, and which he 
must have known, is also very large, and well worth noting . 1 
He has no notice, under any name, of such common flowers 
as the Snowdrop, the Forget-me-not, the Foxglove, the Lily of 
the Valley , 2 and many others which he must have known, but 
which he has not named; because when he names a plant or 
flower, he does so not to show his own knowledge, but because 
the particular flower or plant is wanted in the particular place 
in which he uses it. 
Another point of interest in the Plant-lore of Shakespeare is 
the wide range of his observation. He gathers flowers for us 
from all sorts of places—from the “ turfy mountains ” and the 
“ flat meads; ” from the “ bosky acres ” and the “ unshrubbed 
down ; ” from “ rose-banks ” and “ hedges even-pleached.” But 
he is equally at home in the gardens of the country gentlemen 
with their “pleached bowers” and “leafy orchards.” Nor is 
he a stranger to gardens of a much higher pretension, for he 
1 Perhaps the most noteworthy plant omitted is Tobacco—Shakespeare 
must have been well acquainted with it, not only as every one in his day 
knew of it, but as a friend and companion of Ben Jonson, he must often 
have been in the company of smokers. Ben Jonson has frequent allusions 
to it, and almost all the sixteenth-century writers have something to say 
about it; but Shakespeare never names the herb, or alludes to it in any 
way whatever. 
2 It seems probable that the Lily of the Valley was not recognized as a 
British plant in Shakespeare’s time, and was very little grown even in 
gardens. Turner says, “Ephemeru is called in duch meyblumle, in french 
Muguet. It groweth plentuously in Germany, but not in England that 
ever I could see, savinge in my Lordes gardine at Syon. The Poticaries 
in Germany do name it Lilium Covallium, it may be called in englishe 
May Lilies .”—Names of Hei'bes , 1548. Coghan in 1596 says much the 
same : “I say nothing of them because they are not usuall in gardens.”— 
Haven of Health. 
