32 
SHAKESPEARE'S GARDEN 
Treveris in the “ Grete Herball,” but in Dodoens- 
Lyte’s “ Newe Herball,” 1586. The other species of 
fumaria are mostly rare; others of great beauty 
adorn our gardens, notably Dicentra spectahilis . 
The plantain is hardly a flower, but must find a place 
here ; yet it is a popular plant, and one of many 
names, such as waybroad (German Wegebreit ), rib¬ 
wort, cocks, cockfighters, and waybread. Prior 
derives plantain from plantago — i.e ., planta , the sole 
of the foot—from a fancied resemblance, but this 
seems hardly reasonable. Its scientific name, or 
rather, names, since there are three common plan¬ 
tains, are Plantago lanceolata , L., P. major , L., and 
P. media , L. It is said to have been used as a medicine 
in twenty-two different diseases, among others for 
tertian ague; and its leaves were pounded up with 
white of eggs and applied as a plaster to burns 
(Stevens). The method of application is given thus 
in Ellacombe (p. 228) : “ If a man ache in half his head 
. . . delve up waybroad without iron ere the rising 
of the sun, bind the roots about the head with cross¬ 
wort by a red fillet; soon he will be well.” These 
plants have a tendency to revert into teratological 
variations. As a flower, the most interesting is 
Plantago media , which has long purple filaments and 
white anthers, while P. lanceolata , the ribwort, has 
yellowish-white stamens, and P. major purple anthers. 
The dried seed spike of this last is much gathered 
for cage-birds, who are very fond of the black, 
rough seeds. 
In the hedgerows keck or kecksies will be in full 
blossom, a coarse yet elegant plant of deep green 
tint, with slender umbels of snow-white flowers, a 
favourite resting-place of the orange-tip butterfly 
( Anthocharis cardamines ), whose mimicry of mottled 
green and white decking its lower under-wings 
effectually protects it from observation. The plant 
