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PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
It was certainly an early name. In the “ Catholicon 
Anglicum ” we find: “A Parmayn, volemum, Anglice, a 
Warden ; ” and in Parkinson’s time the name was still in use, 
and he mentions two varieties, “The Warden or Lukewards 
Pear are of two sorts, both white and read, both great and 
small.” (The name of Lukewards seems to point to St. Luke’s 
Day, October 18, as perhaps the time either for picking the 
fruit or for its ripening.) “The Spanish Warden is greater 
than either of both the former, and better also.” And he 
further says: “The Red Warden and the Spanish Warden 
are reckoned amongst the most excellent of Pears, either to 
bake or to roast, for the sick or for the sound—and indeed 
the Quince and the Warden are the only two fruits that are 
permitted to the sick to eat at any time.” The Warden pies 
of Shakespeare’s day, coloured with Saffron, have in our day 
been replaced by stewed Pears coloured with Cochineal. 1 
I can find no guide to the identification of the Poperin 
Pear, beyond Parkinson’s description : “ The summer Popperin 
and the winter Popperin, both of them very good, firm, dry 
Pears, somewhat spotted and brownish on the outside. The 
green Popperin is a winter fruit of equal goodnesse with the 
former.” It was probably a Flemish Pear, and may have been 
introduced by the antiquary Leland, who was made Rector of 
Popering by Henry VIII. The place is further known to us 
as mentioned by Chaucer— 
“ A knyght was fair and gent 
In batail and in tornament, 
His name was Sir Thopas. 
Alone he was in fer contre, 
In Flaundres, all beyonde the se, 
At Popering in the place.” 
As a garden tree the Pear is not only to be grown for its 
fruit, but as a most ornamental tree. Though the individual 
flowers are not, perhaps, so handsome as the Apple blossoms, 
yet the growth of the tree is far more elegant; and an old 
1 The Warden was sometimes spoken of as different from Pears. Sir 
Hugh Platt speaks of “ Wardens or Pears.” 
