BURDOCK AND BURS.

(1)Celia.They are but Burs, cousin, thrown upon thee inholiday foolery; if we walk not in the troddenpaths our very petticoats will catch them.
Rosalind.I could shake them off my coat; these Burs are inmy heart.
As You Like It, act i, sc. 3 (13).
(2)Lucio.Nay, friar, I am a kind of Bur; I shall stick.
Measure for Measure, act iv, sc. 3 (149).
(3)Lysander.Hang oft, thou cat, thou Burr.
Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii, sc. 2 (260).
(4)Pandarus.They are Burs, I can tell you; they'll stickwhere they are thrown.
Troilus and Cressida, act iii, sc. 2 (118).
(5)Burgundy.And nothing teems
But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs.
Henry V, act v, sc. 2 (51).
(6)Cordelia.Crown'd with rank Fumiter and Furrow-weeds,
With Burdocks, Hemlock, Nettles, Cuckoo-flowers.
King Lear, act iv, sc. 4 (3).

The Burs are the unopened flowers of the Burdock (Arctium lappa), and their clinging quality very early obtained for them expressive names, such as amor folia, love leaves, and philantropium. This clinging quality arises from the bracts of the involucrum being long and stiff, and with hooked tips which attach themselves to every passing object. The Burdock is a very handsome plant when seen in its native habitat by the side of a brook, its broad leaves being most picturesque, but it is not a plant to introduce into a garden.[44:1] There is another tribe of plants, however, which are sufficiently ornamental to merit a place in the garden, and whose Burs are even more clinging than those of the Burdock. These are the Acænas; they are mostly natives of America and New Zealand, and some of them (especially A. sarmentosa and A. microphylla) form excellent carpet plants, but their points being furnished with double hooks, like a double-barbed arrow, they have double powers of clinging.

FOOTNOTES:

[44:1]

A Clote-leef he had under his hood
For swoot, and to keep his heed from hete."

Chaucer, Prologue of the Chanounes Yeman (25).

This Clote leaf is by many considered to be the Burdock leaf, but it was more probably the name of the Water-lily.

BURNET.

Burgundy.The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled Cowslip, Burnet, and green Clover.
Henry V. act v, sc. 2 (48).

The Burnet (Poterium sanguisorba) is a native plant of no great beauty or horticultural interest, but it was valued as a good salad plant, the leaves tasting of Cucumber, and Lord Bacon (contemporary with Shakespeare) seems to have been especially fond of it. He says ("Essay of Gardens"):

"Those flowers which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three—that is, Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water Mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread." Drayton had the same affection for it—

"The Burnet shall bear up with this,
Whose leaf I greatly fancy."

Nymphal V.

It also was, and still is, valued as a forage plant that will grow and keep fresh all the winter in dry barren pastures, thus often giving food for sheep when other food was scarce. It has occasionally been cultivated, but the result has not been very satisfactory, except on very poor land, though, according to the Woburn experiments, as reported by Sinclair, it contains a larger amount of nutritive matter in the spring than most of the Grasses. It has brown flowers, from which it is supposed to derive its name (Brunetto).[45:1]

FOOTNOTES:

[45:1] "Burnet colowre, Burnetum, burnetus."—Promptorium Parvulorum.