239 
PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
trusses of white flowers with yellow anthers in great profusion 
during the whole summer. A better-known member of the 
family is the Petunia, very handsome, but little better than an 
annual. The pretty Winter Cherry (Physalis alkekengi ) is 
another member of the family, and so is the Mandrake (see 
Mandrake). The whole tribe is poisonous, or at least to be 
suspected, yet it contains a large number of most useful plants, 
as the Potato, Tomato, Tobacco, Datura, and Cayenne Pepper. 
©rintrose* 
(1) 
( 2 ) 
(3) 
(4) 
(5) 
( 6 ) 
The Violets, Cowslips, and the Primroses, 
Bear to my closet.'— Cymbeline , i. 5, 83. 
I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans, 
Look pale as Primrose with blood-drinking sighs, 
And all to have the noble duke alive.— 2 nd Henry VI, iii. 2, 62. 
Thou shalt not lack 
The flower that’s like thy face, pale Primrose. 
Cymbeline, iv. 2, 220. 
In the wood where often you and I 
Upon faint Primrose beds were wont to lie. 
Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 1, 214. 
Pale Primroses, 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength.— Winter's Tale, iv. 4, 122. 
Like a puff’d and reckless libertine, 
Himself the Primrose path of dalliance treads 
And recks not his own rede.— Hamlet , i. 3, 49. 
(7) I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the Primrose 
way to the everlasting bonfire.— Macbeth, ii. 3, 20. 
(8) Primrose, first-born child of Ver, 
Merry spring-time’s harbinger, 
With her bells dim.— Two Noble Kinsmen, Introd. song. 
(9) Witness this Primrose bank whereon I lie. 
Venus and Adonis, 151.. 
