PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
85 
give no explanation. It was called Bedagar. “ Bedagar 
dicitur gallice aiglentier” (John de Gerlande). “ Bedagrage, 
spina alba, wit-thorn” (Harl. MS., No. 978 in “Reliquiae 
Antique,” i. 36). 1 The name still exists, though not in 
common use ; but only as the name of a drug made from 
“the excrescences on the branches of the Rose, and particu¬ 
larly on those of the wild varieties” (“Parsons on the Rose”). 
It is a native of Britain, but not very common, being chiefly 
confined to the South of England. I have found it on 
Maidenhead Thicket. As a garden plant it is desirable for 
the extremely delicate scent of its leaves, but the flower is not 
equal to others of the family. There is, however, a double- 
flowered variety, which is handsome. The fruit of the single- 
flowered tree is large, and of a deep red colour, and is said to 
be sometimes made into a preserve. In modern times this is 
seldom done, but it may have been common in Shakespeare’s 
time, for Gerard says quaintly: “ The fruit when it is ripe 
maketh most pleasant meats and banqueting dishes, as tarts 
and such like, the making whereof I commit to the cunning 
cooke, and teeth to eat them in the rich man’s mouth.” And 
Drayton says—• 
“ They’ll fetch you conserve from the hip, 
And lay it softly on your lip .”—Nymphal II. 
Eglantine has a further interest in being one of the many 
thorny trees from which the sacred crown of thorns was 
supposed to be made—“ And afterwards he was led into a 
garden of Cayphas, and there he was crowned with Eglantine ” 
(Sir John Mandeville). 
(1) 
El&er. 
And let the stinking Elder, grief, untwine 
His perishing root with the increasing Vine ! 
Cymbeline , iv. 2, 59. 
1 “Est et cynosrodos, rosa camina, ung eglantier, folia myrti habens, 
sed paulo majora; recta assurgens in mediam altitudinem inter arborem 
et fruticem ; fert spongiolas, quibus utuntur medici, ad malefica capitis 
ulcera, la malle tigne , vocatur antem vulgo in officinis pharmacopolarum, 
bedegar .”—Stcphani de re Hortensi Libelhis, p. 19, 1536. 
