The plays are full of plant lore: Ophelia’s flowers, Juliet’s sleeping potion, the “insane root” of Macbeth, and the mandrake’s shriek.
5 Entries in the Materia Medica
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Read What William Shakespeare Says
Each passage in which the database cites William Shakespeare, entry by entry.
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- BurdockThe coarse biennial emigrant of roadsides and dwellings, three to five feet high, with gre
- HeartseaseViola tricolor, the wild pansy of fields and banks, purple, white, and yellow.
- MarigoldCalendula officinalis, the pot marigold.
- ToadThe common toad, dried, powdered, or worn.
- ToadstoneFossil teeth of an extinct fish, Lepidotes, believed to come from a toad’s head.