Also lady’s, ladies’ smock. A common name for the Cuckoo-flower, Cardamine pratensis. (Applied locally also to Convolvulus sepium.)
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., V. ii. 905. Ladie-smockes all siluer white.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, II. xviii. 203. They are commonly called in Latine, Flos Cuculi; in English Cuckowe flowers … at the Namptwich in Cheshire … Ladie smockes.
1648. Herrick, Hesper. (1869), 121. Dispose That lady-smock, that pansie, and that rose Neatly apart.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxiii. 325. Ladies Smock, (forgive the vulgar name) has the calyx gaping a little.
1796. H. Hunter, trans. St.-Pierre’s Stud. Nat. (1799), I. 83. Some of the convolvuluses, vulgarly called lady’s-smock.
1874. T. Hardy, Far fr. Madding Crowd, I. 239. Clear white ladies’ smocks.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, 96. Chains of lady’s-smock.
