A bit gross?

William Shakespeare bestowed eternal fame upon the early purple orchid, Orchis mascula, when he gave Gertrude the following speech, describing the drowning of Ophelia:

There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her crownet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook.

Long purple was the common name but what was the "grosser name" used by uncouth shepherds? We do not know for sure but Geoffrey Grigson who collected regional and vernacular plant names for his Englishman's Flora lists no less that 90 different terms for this beautiful flower. They include Priest's Pintle, Bull's Bag, Cuckoo Cock, Fox Stones and Granfer Griggle Sticks.

The Latin name Orchis itself means testicle. "Dig up an Early Purple Orchid and you find two root-tubers in which food is stored, a new, firm one which is filling up for next year's growth, and an old slack one which is emptying and supplying the present needs." Throughout Europe from classical times onward, Orchids have been associated historically with sex and lust. Many were the recipes for aphrodisiac potions to provoke desire and stimulate fertility that could be concocted from the twin tubers of this plant, or the dried roots could be carried by the said shepherd in hopeful anticipation of meeting a equally liberal shepherdess.

The flower's vividly erect stance among the spring growth remains striking, even startling, to the eye. It was certainly no coincidence that the love-lorn Ophelia included it in her last bouquet before her desperate tumble streamwards.