of this plant were produced from the flesh of
criminals which fell from the gibbet, and that it only grew in such a
situation.[531]

[528] Phillips's "Flora Historica," 1829, vol. i. pp. 324, 325;
see Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," 1869, vol. ii. p. 1777.

[529] "Mystic Trees and Flowers," by M. D. Conway; _Fraser's
Magazine_, 1870, vol. ii. p. 705.

[530] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. v. p. 153.

[531] See Sir Thomas Browne's "Vulgar Errors," 1852, vol. ii. p. 6.

_Marigold._ This flower was a great favorite with our old writers, from
a curious notion that it always opened or shut its flowers at the sun's
bidding; in allusion to which Perdita remarks, in "Winter's Tale" (iv.
3):

"The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun,
And with him rises weeping."

It was also said, but erroneously, to turn its flowers to the sun, a
quality attributed to the sunflower (_Helianthus annuus_), and thus
described by Moore:

"The sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose."

A popular name for the marigold was "mary-bud," mention of which we find
in "Cymbeline" (ii. 3):

"winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes."

_Medlar._ This fruit, which Shakespeare describes as only fit to be
eaten when rotten, is applied by Lucio to a woman of loose character, as
in "Measure for Measure" (iv. 3): "they would else have married me to
the rotten medlar."

Chaucer, in the "Reeve's Prologue," applies the same name to it:

"That ilke fruit is ever lenger the wers,
Till it be roten in mullok, or in stre.
We olde men, I drede, so faren we,
Till we be roten can we not be ripe."

_Mistletoe._ This plant, which, from the earliest times, has been an
object of interest to naturalists, on account of its curious growth,
deriving its subsistence entirely from the branch to which it annexes
itself, has been the subject of widespread superstition. In "Titus
Andronicus" (ii. 3), Tamora describes it in the graphic passage below as
the "baleful mistletoe," an epithet which, as Mr. Douce observes, is
extremely appropriate, either conformably to an ancient, but erroneous,
opinion, that the berries of the mistletoe were poisonous, or on account
of the use made of this plant by the Druids during their detestable
human sacrifices.[532]

"_Demetrius._ How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother,
Why doth your h