SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 25 
which, by the way, was certainly not an apple, but 
probably the orange, citron, or quince : 
How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow ! 
Sonnets , xciii. 
A handsome tree is the sycamore ( Acer pseudo- 
platanus, L.). A native of Middle Europe, but now 
well naturalized in our islands, few trees exceed it in 
beauty, and its shady branches rise to the height of 
40 to 60 feet. Nor is it useful for sight alone. Its 
fine-grained wood is much used in turnery, and 
its sap is sufficiently sugary to serve for maple 
sugar. Our native species of the genus is a small 
tree, seldom exceeding 10 to 20 feet; but, small as 
it is, the wood is very finely and delicately grained. 
This tree must not be confounded with the syca¬ 
more or zicamine of the Bible, which is a fig 
mulberry, and a native of Africa and Syria. In Scot¬ 
land the sycamore bears the name of dool, or grief 
tree, and was used for feudal executions. The most 
celebrated is that at the Castle of Cassilis. Shake¬ 
speare mentions the “ cool shade of a sycamore ” in 
Loves Labour s Lost , V. ii. 89 ; “ the grove of syca¬ 
more ” in Romeo and Juliet, I. i. 128 ; and in Othello , 
IV. iii. 41, 
The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore-tree. 
There is, however, a small tree which takes one 
of its names—“may ”—from this month. It is also 
called the albespoine, hawthorn, hawthorn quickset or 
whitethorn, or simply thorn by the country people, 
and is the Crataegus oxyacantha , L. Its snowy blossoms, 
massed in profuse luxuriance on their setting of 
bright green leaves, serve to make a hawthorn glade 
one of the loveliest components of English scenery. 
And when the leaves are painted with their autumnal 
