2 o6 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
called all over England, as it is in Northern Germany, and 
probably in other northern countries. There is little doubt 
that the name arose from the custom of using the Willow 
branches with the pretty golden catkins on Palm Sunday as a 
substitute for Palm branches. 
“ In Rome upon Palm Sunday they bear true Palms, 
The Cardinals bow reverently and sing old Psalms ; 
Elsewhere those Palms are sung ’mid Olive branches, 
The Holly branch supplies the place among the avalanches ; 
More northern climes must be content with the sad Willow.” 
Goethe (quoted by Seeman). 
But besides Willow branches, Yew branches are sometimes 
used for the same purpose, and so we find Yews called Palms. 
Evelyn says they were so called in Kent j they are still so called 
in Ireland, and in the churchwarden’s accounts of Woodbury, 
Devonshire, is the following entry: “Memorandum, 1775. 
That a Yew or Palm tree was planted in the churchyard, 
ye south side of the church, in the same place where one 
was blown down by the wind a few days ago, this 25 th of 
November.” 1 
How Willow or Yew branches could ever have been sub¬ 
stituted for such a very different branch as a Palm it is hard to 
say, but in lack of a better explanation, I think it not unlikely 
that it might have arisen from the direction for the Feast of 
Tabernacles in Leviticus xxiii. 40 : “Ye shall take you on the 
first day the boughs of goodly trees, the branches of Palm trees, 
and the boughs of thick trees, and Willows of the brook.” But 
from whatever cause the name and the custom was derived, the 
Willow was so named in very early times, and in Shakespeare’s 
1 In connection with this, Turner’s account of the Palm in 1538 is worth 
quoting: “ Palma arborem in anglia nunq’ me vidisse memini. Indie 
tamen ramis palmaru (ut illi loquutur) soepius sacerdote dicente andivi. 
Benedic etia et hos palmaru ramos, quu prceter salignas frondes nihil omnino 
videre ego, quid alii viderint nescio. Si nobis palmarum frondes non sup- 
peterent ; proestaret me judice mutare lectionem et dicere. Benedic hos 
salicii ramos q’ falso et mendaciter salicum frondes palmarum frondes 
vocare.”— Libellus, De re Herbaria , s.v. Palma. , 
