The Crow-flower is now the Buttercup,[67:1] but in Shakespeare's time it was applied to the Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi), and I should think that this was the flower that poor Ophelia wove into her garland. Gerard says, "They are not used either in medicine or in nourishment; but they serve for garlands and crowns, and to deck up gardens." We do not now use the Ragged Robin for the decking of our gardens, not that we despise it, for it is a flower that all admire in the hedgerows, but because we have other members of the same family as easy to grow and more handsome, such as the double variety of the wild plant, L. Chalcedonica, L. LagascÆ, L. fulgens, L. Haagena, &c. In Shakespeare's time the name was also given to the Wild Hyacinth, which is so named by Turner and Lyte; but this could scarcely have been the flower of Ophelia's garland, which was composed of the flowers of early summer, and not of spring. (See Appendix, p. 388.)

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