Botanical survey of Shakespeare-2

6. Crow flowers: These are also known as crowfoot, a name given on account of the resemblance between the leaves of this plant and the crow’s feet. The crow flower is Ranunculus scleratus of the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae, and it is a semi-aquatic plant.

There is a reference to crow flowers in ‘Hamlet’, where the Queen informs Leartes of the mentally demented Ophelia’s death:

“Queen: Your sister is drown'd, Leartes.
Leartes: Drown'd! O! Where?
Queen: There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, long purples.”

(Hamlet. Act IV, Se. 7)

The crow flowers in the garlands must have been picked up from the waterside where Ophelia was obviously roaming about.

7. Cuckoo flowers: The cuckoo flowers are so called because they come to bloom at about the same time as the cuckoo reaches England. They are one of the earliest of flowers in the English marshes and damp meadows.

King Lear, gone mad at the gross ingratitude of his two elder daughters, was roaming about in the wilds near Dover. Cordelia, his youngest daughter that spoke truthfully that she loved him as a daughter would her father and no more, came to know of this, sends search parties to locate the king and bring him over to her so that, by the love she would shower upon him, he might be restored to his senses. Instructing the search parties, she describes the king as one wearing a crown of wild flowers. She says:

“Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow weeds
With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.”

(King Lear. Act IV. Se. 7)

The cuckoo flowers are Cardamine pratensis, a member of the mustard family, Cruciferae. Note that the location is near Dover, where marshes prevail.

8. Cupid’s flower: Also known as heartsease, pansy and violet, Cupid’s flower is Viola tricolor, of Violaceae. Under this name, there is only one reference to this plant in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. With Dian’s bud (bud of Agnus castus , a verbanaceous tree), the Cupid’s flower has been employed by Oberon to disenchant Titania, his queen.

“Be as thou wast wont to be;
See as thou was wont to see:
Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.”

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act IV, Se. 1)

The name Cupid’s flower is rather uncommon but the violets have always been associated with love and it is fancied that the original white violets changed their colour to blue and purple having been hit by Cupid’s arrows: probably, therefore, Cupid’s flowers mean more particularly the coloured pansies, In all possibility this association with love is because the pansies are readily hybridizable.

9. Elm: Elm is part of the normal rural English scene. It is Ulmus procera and is often regarded as a strong partner wedded to the weaker, the vine. The comparison is quite apt because many weak-stemmed plants are found growing around the trunks of the elms. In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Titania speaks of:

“The female ivy so enrings the barky fingers of the elm.”

The analogy is brought out more directly in the ‘Comedy of Errors’.
Adriana tells her husband:

“Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine
Whose weakness married to thy stronger state
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.”

(Comedy of Errors. Act If, Se. 2)

10. Hawthorn: Hawthorn, a member of the rose family, signifies good hope because it comes to flower on the eve of summer. The Latin name of hawthorn is Cratageus oxycantha.

Every reference made to this plant in Shakespeare’s plays is indicative of the final happy turn of events.

For example, in ‘As You Like It’, Rosalind finds her name carved on tree barks and meets Orlando himself, the author of these carvings. But then, she was in a man’s attire and so goes unrecognised. She tells him: “There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorn and elgies tfu brambles”.

Knowing that finally Orlando and Rosalind marry, one cannot help seeing some significance in the employment of hawthorn by Orlando for hanging his odes. And, hawthorns have spines facilitating hanging papers on them!

In ‘King Lear’, the mad king was led into a hawthorn bush by Kent and that very soon after, Cordelia comes to his succour is not without its own significance.

Below is a reference to hawthorn from ‘Henry VI. Part 3’, which is pregnant with meaning:

“Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep
Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy
To kings that fear their subjects their treachery?”

(Henry VI, Part Ill, Act 11, Se. 5)

11. Hebenon: Hebenon is referred to only once in all the plays of Shakespeare and that is in ‘Hamlet’. The ghost of the dead king informs Hamlet:

“Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle
With a juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment.”

(Hamlet. Act I, Se. 5)

Hebenon is variously taken to mean: 1. Yew 2. Ebony and 3. Henbane. In all probability, hebenon is yew. Yew is closely associated with death, grown in churchyards and cemeteries. It is poisonous, especially after the twigs and leaves are left to ferment for some time. It is a “distilment” that is referred to and so we may not be far wrong in assuming that hebenon, as employed in the passage, means the yew. Yew is Taxus baccata of the conifers.

We may altogether discredit the view that hebenon is ebony because in the first place ebony is not poisonous and, secondly, it is quite uncommon in England.

On the other hand, hebenon could be henbane, Hyoscyamus niger, a solaneceous plant. The henbane is cultivated even today, for it is a narcotic. However, its poisonous effects stop short of death, causing only paralysis and loss of speech.

Yew, therefore, seems to answer all the qualifications of hebenon.

12. Hemlock: Hemlock is Conium maculatum, a member of the coriander family. It is a highly poisonous plant and legend has it that Socrates died by drinking hemlock.

Hemlock receives a good deal of attention at Shakespeare’s hands. It is mentioned in ‘Macbeth’, ‘King Lear’ and ‘Henry V’.

Reference made to hemlock in King Lear has already been cited under cuckoo flowers. It is one of those plants which the fantastic crown of King Lear contained, after he had gone mad, 

In ‘Macbeth’, it is referred to as one of the ingredients that is to go into the preparation of a charm, made by the witches; another plant component is yew, Well, I give the entire passage for the benefit of the readers interested in making a charm of the kind.

First Witch:
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

Second Witch:
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Third Witch:
Harpier cries 'Tis time', 'tis time'.

First Witch:
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw,
Toad, that under the cold stone
Days and nights has thirty one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got.

All:
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Second Witch:
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a bell-broth, boil and bubble.

All:
Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

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Third Witch:
Seale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt sea shark,
Root of hemlock digged in the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch deliver’d by a drab
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add there to a tiger's chandron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

(Macbeth. Act IV, Se. 1)

(To be continued)...

Part 1