SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
J 9 
Senate was the right to suspend a civic crown on the 
top of his palace between two laurel branches, as 
the perpetual defender of his people, and it is thus 
represented on certain of his coins. 
The other references in the poet to the civic crown 
are : 
To a cruel war I sent him, from whence he returned, 
His brows bound with oak.— Coriolanus, I. iii. 15. 
He comes the third time home with oaken garland. 
Ibid., II. i. 137. 
The fruit of the tree is also mentioned in several 
places. Thus, 
All their elves for fear 
Creep into acorn-cups* and hide them there. 
Midsummer-Night's Dream, II. i. 30. 
The use of the acorns for food of swine is thus 
referred to in a passage from Cymbeline (II. v. l6) : 
Like a full-acorned boar—a German one. 
We might add much, did space permit, of Oak- 
apple Day and King Charles’s adventures, of the many 
historical or magnificent oaks that still adorn our 
country, of their use in shipbuilding and archi¬ 
tecture ; but April days are passing, and much lies 
before us; hence we must leave the delicate sessile 
blossoms and peculiar green of the oak to its 
insect hosts — to the pretty but destructive little 
Tortrix viridana and the various cynips, aphides, and 
weevils that love its shady recesses. 
* These cups are technically “ glans,” a word applied to 
fruits in which three layers are lignified, like the acorn and 
nut. 
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