Xabjvsmocfts. 
And Lady-smocks all silver-white. 
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, 
Do paint the meadows with delight. 
Love's Labour's Lost , v. 2, 905. 
pADY-SMOCKS are the flowers of Cardamine 
pratensis , the pretty early meadow flower of 
Vv 7 hich children are so fond, and of which the 
popularity is shown by its many names : Lady- 
smocks, Cuckoo-flower , 1 Meadow Cress, Pinks, 
Bog-spinks, and May-flower, and “in North- 
folke, Canterbury Bells.” , The origin of the name is not very 
clear. It is generally explained 
from the resemblance of the 
flowers to smocks hung out to 
dry, but the resemblance seems 
to me rather far-fetched. Ac¬ 
cording to another explanation, 
“ the Lady-smock, a corruption 
of Our Lady’s-smock, is so called 
from its first flowering about 
Lady-tide. It is a pretty pur¬ 
plish-white, tetradynamous plant, 
which blows from Lady-tide till 
the end of May, and which 
during the latter end of April 
covers the moist meadows with 
1 “ Ladies-smock.—A kind of water-cresses, of whose virtue it partakes; 
and it is otherwise called Cuckoo-flower.”— Phillips, World of Words , 
1696, 
