SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 73 
But the principal reference is in the same play, 
II. i. 1 65, under the name “ love-in-idleness ”: 
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell: 
It fell upon a little western flower,— 
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,— 
And maidens call it love-in-idleness. 
Fetch me that flower ; the herb I showed thee once : 
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid 
Will make or man or woman madly dote 
Upon the next live creature that it sees. 
Also in the Taming of the Shrew, Li. 155: 
But see, while idly I stood looking on, 
I found the effect of love-in-idleness. 
The plant is very closely allied to the sweet violet, 
and has the same general arrangement of its petals, 
but is placed in the subgenus Melanium. It has the 
customary geographical distribution of most of our 
plants—Europe, North Africa, Asia, to North-West 
India. In our own land it is a cornfield weed, with 
purple-whitish or golden petals. The type has 
purple upper petals; it is the origin of the splendid 
colours of our garden varieties. 
In dealing with flowers this month, the mallow is 
not to be despised; rough though it be and the com¬ 
panion of coarse weeds, its satin-like flowers of deep 
pink and dark-green reniform leaves set off many a 
bit of barren waste. Our commonest and largest 
species is Malva sylvestris, L., the fruit of which, 
known as “ cheeses ” to village children, are often 
picked and eaten by them. Handsomer still is the 
delicate pink musk mallow (M. moscliata, L.), whose 
bright green leaves, much divided, make a specially 
elegant setting to the flower. Our other species, 
the dwarf mallow (M. rotundifolia, L.), has small 
flowers of white streaked with lilac. The mallows 
are generally distributed, but their allies, the tree 
