7 8 
SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
his creation. Sweet as the plant is, lading the air 
with its aromatic scent, yet has it no native name—at 
least, none that we can with certainty assign to it. 
That we call it by, was the Greek name for some 
sweet-scented plant or shrub used in sacrifice. We 
have two native species, serpyllum , Tr., and chamcedrys, 
Tr. The latter is scarce, the former common, and 
ranging from Greenland to the Himalayas. It is a 
well-known garden herb. 
By the river-bank this month reeds and sedges 
will be found in luxuriance, and this seems a fitting 
place in which to record their lore. Along the 
banks of Avon no less than along “ swift Severn’s 
flood” (1 Henry IV., I. iii. 103) the reeds grow 
thickly and wave their long, grassy leaves and 
silky plumes in every passing breeze. Few plants 
are more graceful. By the poet every grassy plant 
by the riverside was grouped either as a reed or 
sedge. 
Reeds, properly speaking, are graminaceous plants, 
(the Phragmites communis , Trin., of botanists), with a 
very wide geographical distribution in Europe, Asia, 
Africa, America, and Australia, but there are none of 
them in the extreme North. They are mentioned in 
Antony and Cleopatra , II. vii. 13, Cymbeline, IV. ii. 26*7, 
in both instances in allusion to their want of stability, 
and in Lucrece , 1. 1437 : 
To Simois’ reedy banks the red blood ran. 
Their use in thatching is referred to in The Tempest, 
V. i. 16: 
Like winter’s drops 
From eaves of reeds. 
For its employment as a musical instrument, the 
Pan or shepherd’s pipes, we get: 
