LADY-SMOCK (Cardamine pratensis). The lovely little spring song in "Love's Labour's Lost"[43] with the line,

has immortalized this little flower of the English meadows, but little known in our country. The lady-smock is very common in England in early spring. Properly speaking it should be Our Lady's-smock, as it is one of the many plants dedicated to the Virgin Mary and bearing her name. The list is a long one, including Lady's-slippers, Lady's-bower, Lady's-cushion, Lady's-mantle, Lady's-laces, Lady's-looking-glass, Lady's-garters, Lady's-thimble, Lady's-hair (maidenhair fern), Lady's-seal, Lady's-thistle, Lady's-bedstraw, Lady's-fingers, Lady's-gloves, and so on. These flowers, originally dedicated to Venus, Juno, and Diana in Greek and Roman mythology and to Freya and Bertha in Northern lore and legend, were gradually transferred to the Virgin with the spread of Christianity. The Lady's-smock takes its name from the fancied, but far-fetched, resemblance to a smock. It is said, by way of explanation, that when these flowers are seen in great quantity they suggest the comparison of linen smocks bleaching on the green meadow. Other names for the plant are Cuckoo-flower, Meadow-cress, Spinks, and Mayflower; and in Norfolk the Cardamine pratensis is called Canterbury-bells. The petals have a peculiarly soft and translucent quality with a faint lilac tinge. Shakespeare describes the flower as "silver white," an epithet that has puzzled many persons. However, one ardent Shakespeare lover has made a discovery:

"Gather a lady-smock as you tread the rising grass in fragrant May, and although in individuals the petals are sometimes cream color, as a rule the flower viewed in the hand is lilac—pale, but purely and indisputably lilac. Where then is the silver-whiteness? It is the meadows, remember, that are painted, when, as often happens, the flower is so plentiful as to hide the turf, and most particularly if the ground be a slope and the sun be shining from behind us, all is changed; the flowers are lilac no longer; the meadow is literally 'silver-white.' So it is always—Shakespeare's epithets are like prisms. Let them tremble in the sunshine and we discover that it is he who knows best."

The beautiful song begins:

CUCKOO BUDS (Ranunculus). It is quite possible that in "cuckoo buds of yellow hue" Shakespeare meant the blossoms of the buttercup or kingcup (called by the country people of Warwickshire horse-blobs). Some authorities claim that cuckoo-buds is intended to represent the lesser celandine, of which Wordsworth was so fond that he wrote three poems to it. Others call cuckoo-buds carmine pratensis; but that could hardly be possible because Shakespeare speaks of "lady-smocks all silver white" in one line and "cuckoo buds of yellow hue" in the succeeding line.

There is much confusion in the identification of lady-smocks, cuckoo-buds, cuckoo-flowers, and crow-flowers, for they are more or less related.

Gerard says: "Our Lady-Smock is also called the cuckoo-flower because it flowers in April and May when the cuckoo doth begin to sing her pleasant notes without stammering."