answers: V. tricolor
context: line in Shakespeare's "Hamlet", "There's pansies, that's for thoughts". (What Shakespeare had in mind was "V. tricolor", the wild pansy, not a modern garden pansy.) Shakespeare makes a more direct reference, probably to "V. tricolor" in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Oberon sends Puck to gather "a little western flower that maidens call love-in-idleness". Oberon's account is that he diverted an arrow from Cupid's bow aimed at "a fair vestal, throned by the west" (supposedly Queen Elizabeth I) to fall upon the plant "before milk-white, now purple with love's wound". The "imperial vot'ress" passes on "fancy-free", destined never to fall in </s> Acantha Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, English translation: "thorny") is often claimed to be a minor character in Greek mythology whose metamorphosis was the origin of the "Acanthus" plant. The tale goes that Acantha was a nymph loved by the god Apollo. Acantha however rebuffed Apollo's advances and scratched his face. As a result, Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves. The story has, over the years, been retold in books, encyclopedias, and journals. Compilers have, however, often omitted reference to classical sources. For instance the first edition of John Lemprière's "Bibliotheca Classica", an early encyclopaedia of </s> is commonly cultivated as an ornamental in temperate areas, in spite of its toxicity. The cultivar ‘Nancy Lindsay’ has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. It is a perennial herb with leaves up to long. The flowers are solitary, across, with six tepals and six stamens with orange anthers and three white styles. At the time of fertilisation, the ovary is below ground. "Colchicum autumnale" is the only species of its family native to Great Britain and Ireland, with notable populations under the stewardship of the County Wildlife Trusts. It also occurs across mainland Europe from Portugal
question: what is the flower in a midsummer night 's dream