PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 55 
the microscope, being described as exactly like a hedgehog 
rolled up. 1 
Coloquinti&a. 
The food that to him now is as luscious as Locusts, shall be to him shortly 
as bitter as Coloquintida.— Othello , i. 3, 354. 
The Coloquintida, or Colocynth, is the dried fleshy part of 
the fruit of the Cucumis or Citrullus colocynthis. As a drug it 
was imported in Shakespeare’s time and long before, but he 
may also have known the plant. Gerard seems to have grown 
it, though from his describing it as a native of the sandy 
shores of the Mediterranean, he perhaps confused it with the 
Squirting Cucumber ( Momordica elaterium). It is a native of 
Turkey, but has been found also in Japan. It is also found in 
the East, and we read of it in the history of Elisha : “ One 
went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild Vine, 
and gathered thereof wild Gourds, his lap full.” 2 It is not 
quite certain what species of Gourd is here meant, but all the 
old commentators considered it to be the Colocynth, 3 the word 
“ vine ” meaning any climbing plant, a meaning that is still in 
common use in America. 
All the tribe of Cucumbers are handsome foliaged plants, 
but they require room. On the Continent they are much more 
frequently grown in gardens than in England, but the hardy 
perennial Cucumber ( Cucumis perennis ) makes a very handsome 
carpet where the space can be spared, and the Squirting 
Cucumber (also hardy and perennial) is worth growing for its 
curious fruit. ( See also Pumpion.) 
1 In Dorsetshire the Cockle is the bur of the Burdock (Barnes’ Glossary 
of Dorset”). 
2 2 Kings iv. 39. 
3 “Invenitque quasi vitem sylvestrem, et collegit e$i ea Colocynthidas 
agri. ”— Viilgate. 
