Lady’s smock (Cardamine pratensis) bears a name immortalised in Shakespeare’s song:—
“When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady’s smocks all silver white,
And cuckow-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.”
I suspect that the poet called them silver white to rhyme with delight, for they are distinctly lilac in colour. Nor are they especially smock-like—many other flowers suggest a woman’s skirt equally well—but this is a carping criticism.
Lady’s bedstraw seems to have been so called from the yellow colour of one or more kinds of Galium.
Lady’s bower is Clematis vitalba, now known as traveller’s joy. Anyone exploring Seven Leases Lane, which runs along the edge of the Cotswolds, will travel in continuous joy, for the lady’s bower converts many hundred yards of hedge into continuous beauty.
Pulmonaria has been called the Virgin Mary’s tears, from the pale circular marks on its leaves. The blue flowers have been supposed to typify the beautiful eyes of the Virgin, while the red buds are the same eyes disfigured with weeping.
Many plants are named after the devil; there is, for instance, a species of Scabiosa called devil’s bit, because that eminent personage bit the root short off, and so it remains to this day. His object seems to have been to destroy the medicinal properties the plant was supposed to possess.
We now pass on to plants flowering on certain
dates, such as Saints’ days or other church festivals. The snowdrop has been called the Fair Maid of February, because it was supposed to flower on Candlemas Day, 2nd February, which would be 15th February according to the modern calendar.
The name St John’s wort, which we habitually apply to several species of Hypericum, is correctly used only for H. perforatum. Its English name is said to have been given from its flowering on St John’s Day, 24th June. This would be 7th July, new style, and I find that Blomefield’s average of eight annual observations is 4th July.