hakespeare refers in "Richard II." (ii. 4):

"'Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd"

--having obtained it probably from Holinshed, who says: "In this yeare,
in a manner throughout all the realme of Englande, old baie trees
withered." Lupton, in his "Syxt Booke of Notable Things," mentions this
as a bad omen: "Neyther falling-sickness, neyther devyll, wyll infest or
hurt one in that place whereas a bay-tree is. The Romaynes call it the
plant of the good angel."[483]

[482] See Dyce's "Glossary," p. 32.

[483] See also Evelyn's "Sylva," 1776, p. 396.

_Camomile._ It was formerly imagined that this plant grew the more
luxuriantly for being frequently trodden or pressed down; a notion
alluded to in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4) by Falstaff: "For though the
camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the
more it is wasted, the sooner it wears." Nares[484] considers that the
above was evidently written in ridicule of the following passage, in a
book very fashionable in Shakespeare's day, Lyly's "Euphues," of which
it is a parody: "Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed
down, the more it spreadeth; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled
and touched, the sooner it withereth and decayeth," etc.

[484] "Glossary," vol. i. p. 150; see Dyce's "Glossary," p. 63.

_Clover._ According to Johnson, the "honey-stalks" in the following
passage ("Titus Andronicus," iv. 4) are "clover-flowers, which contain a
sweet juice." It is not uncommon for cattle to overcharge themselves
with clover, and die, hence the allusion by Tamora:

"I will enchant the old Andronicus
With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,
Than baits to fish, or honey-stalks to sheep."

_Columbine._ This was anciently termed "a thankless flower," and was
also emblematical of forsaken lovers. It is somewhat doubtful to what
Ophelia alludes in "Hamlet" (iv. 5), where she seems to address the
king: "There's fennel for you, and columbines." Perhaps she regarded it
as symbolical of ingratitude.

_Crow-flowers._ This name, which in Shakespeare's time was applied to
the "ragged robin," is now used for the buttercup. It was one of the
flowers that poor Ophelia wove into her garland ("Hamlet," iv. 7):

"There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples."

_Cuckoo-buds._ Commentators are un