PLANT-LORE OE SHAKESPEARE 
29! 
di San Pietro, in English Sampire and Rock Sampier 1 —in 
other words, Samphire is simply a corruption of Saint Peter. 
The plant grows round all the coasts of Great Britain and 
Ireland, wherever there are suitable rocks on which it can 
grow, and on all the coasts of Europe, except the northern 
coasts; and it is a plant very easily recognized, if not by its 
pale-green, fleshy leaves, yet certainly by its taste, or its “ smell 
delightful and pleasant.” The leaves form the pickle, “the 
pleasantest sauce, most familiar, and best agreeing with man’s 
body,” but now much out of fashion. In Shakespeare’s time 
the gathering of Samphire was a regular trade, and Steevens 
quotes from Smith’s “ History of Waterford ” to show the 
danger attending the trade : “ It is terrible to see how people 
gather it, hanging by a rope several fathoms from the top of 
the impending rocks, as it were in the air.” In our own time 
the quantity required could be easily got without much danger, 
for it grows in places perfectly accessible in sufficient quantity 
for the present requirements, for in some parts it grows away 
from the cliffs, so that “ the fields about Porth Gwylan, in 
Carnarvonshire, are covered with it.” It may even be grown 
in the garden, especially in gardens near the sea, and makes a 
pretty plant for rockwork. 
There is a story connected with the Samphire which shows 
how botanical knowledge, like all other knowledge, may be 
of great service, even where least expected. Many years ago 
a ship was wrecked on the Sussex coast, and a small party 
were left on a rock not far from land. To their horror they 
found the sea rising higher and higher, and threatening before 
long to cover their place of refuge. Some of them proposed 
to try and swim for land, and would have done so, but just as 
they were preparing for it an officer saw a plant of Samphire 
growing on the rock, and told them they might stay and trust 
to that little plant that the sea would rise no further, for that 
the Samphire, though always growing within the spray of the 
sea, never grows where the sea could actually touch it. They 
believed him and were saved. 
1 Dr. Prior. 
