142 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
its silvery-white, which looks at a distance like a white sheet 
spread over the fields.”— Circle of the Seasons. Those who 
adopt this view called the plant Our Lady’s-smock, but I 
cannot find that name in any old writers. Drayton, coeval with 
Shakespeare, says—• 
“ Some to grace the show, 
Of Lady-smocks most white do rob each neighbouring mead, 
Wherewith their loose locks most curiously they braid.” 
And Izaac Walton, in the next century, drew that pleasant 
picture of himself sitting quietly by the waterside—“looking 
down the meadows I could see here a boy gathering Lilies and 
Lady-smocks, and there a girl cropping Culverkeys and 
Cowslips.” 1 
There is a double variety of the Lady-smock which makes a 
handsome garden plant, and there is a remarkable botanical 
curiosity connected with the plant which should be noticed. 
The plant often produces in the autumn small plants upon the 
leaves, and by the means of these little parasites the plant is 
increased, and even if the leaves are detached from the plant, 
and laid upon moist congenial soil, young plants will be pro¬ 
duced. This is a process that is well known to gardeners in 
the propagation of Begonias, and it is familiar to us in the pro¬ 
liferous Ferns, where young plants are produced on the surface 
or tips of the fronds ; and Dr. Masters records “ the same con¬ 
dition as a teratological occurrence in the leaves of Hyacinthus 
Pouzolsii , Drosera intermedia , A rah is pumila , Chelidonium 
majus , Chirita Sinensis , Epicia bicolor , Zamia , &c.”— Vegetable 
Teratology , p. 170. 
1 Culverkeys is mentioned in Dennis’ “ Secrets of Angling ” as a meadow 
flower: “pale Ganderglas, and azor Culverkayes.” It is also mentioned 
by Aubrey, in his “ Natural History of Wilts ; ” but the name is found in 
no other writer, and is now extinct. It is difficult to say what plant is 
meant; many have been suggested : the Columbine, the Meadow Orchis, 
the Bluebell, &c. I think it must be the Meadow Geranium, which is 
certainly “azor” almost beyond any other British plant. “Culver” is a 
dove or pigeon, and “keyes” or “ kayes ” are the seeds of a plant, and 
the seeds of the Geranium were all likened to the claws of birds, so that one 
of our British species is called G. columbinum. 
