6 4 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
The gooseberry, Ribes* grossularia, L., bears a hairy 
berry, but there is a variety with the berry smooth, 
ranked by Linnaeus as a species under the name of 
Uva-crispa. It is probably wild in copses in the hilly 
districts of the North of England, although it is only 
found as a garden escape elsewhere. It has the 
usual distribution of European plants throughout 
the Continent, and stretches into Asia on the 
one hand, and North Africa on the other. Murray 
suggests that the name is derived from “ goose ” 
and “ berry,” adding that the grounds on which 
plants have received names associating them with 
animals are usually inexplicable. He thinks there 
is no evidence for a hypothetical gorse or grose 
berry, although there is a form “ gozell ” for 
" groseD,” and the country folk still talk of “ goose- 
gogs.” It was not known to the ancients in a cul¬ 
tivated state, and is said to have been introduced 
into our gardens by the Netherlanders. It is re¬ 
ferred to but once in the plays, in 2 Henry IV., 
I. ii. 194 : 
All the other gifts appertinent to man, as the malice of this 
age shapes them, are not worth a gooseberry. 
From which we may gather that it was not a fruit 
very highly esteemed in Shakespeare’s day. 
On hilly heaths we may by chance find this month 
the fruit of the whortleberry or bilberry, Vaccinium 
myrtillus , L., whose dark-blue glaucous berries are 
referred to in the words: 
To Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap : 
Where fires thou find’st unraked and hearths unswept, 
There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry. 
Merry Wives , V. v. 47. 
* Ribes, from an Arabic word for rheum, applied to this 
genus in error (Hooker). 
