SHAKESPEARE’S GARDEN 
85 
glaucous green stems, extremely divided leaves, and 
yellowish flower. In the East of England it grows 
in luxuriance in chalk-pits, and is much used chopped 
fine with mackerel and other fish ;* hence the poet’s 
allusion : 
A’ plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel. 
2 Henry IV., II. iv. 266. 
It is sometimes used as an emblem of flattery, 
as in Hamlet, IV. v. 180 : 
There’s fennel for you and columbines ; 
and by Ben Jonson in “The Case altered,” II. ii.f : 
Chris. No, my good lord. 
Count. Your good lord ! Oh, how this smells of fennel! 
The plant is the Fceniculinn vulgare, Mill., and is 
found on the Continent south of Belgium. 
Burnet is a herb still grown in our gardens, and, 
as salad burnet, abundant in our meadows. It is a 
pretty little rosaceous plant with serrated, pinnate 
leaves, no corolla, and large pendent stamens. It 
is known to science as Poterium Sanguisorba, L., 
Another species, P. officinale, Hook, fil., the great 
burnet, is also found in our islands. The name, 
formerly, says Prior (p. 35 ), applied to a brown cloth, 
is diminutive, and in French brunette, Italian brunetto, 
so called from its brown flowers. It is only once 
referred to, and that with the cowslip and clover, in— 
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth 
The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover. 
Henry V., V. ii. 48. 
Other plants, like burnet, of a sweet smell, and 
equally admired by Bacon, are the mints-—twice 
mentioned : 
* Periwinkles are cooked with it in Norfolk, 
t Quoted by Ellacombe, p. 91. 
