108 



HARDWICKE'S SCI EN CE- GOSSIP. 



and the place was henceforward known as Saffron 

 Walden. 



If you want to grow saffron, you should plant the 

 bulbs in July, in rows. The soil ought to be rich 

 and light. About the third week in September you 

 will see the leaves appear in little delicate tufts ; 

 they grow immediately from the bulb, and are enve- 

 loped in a thin membrane or sheath. The flowers 

 proceed from the leaves on a very short scape, and 

 may be expected to bloom early in the month of 

 October. They will come up in succession for a 

 mouth, six or ten, or even moi'c, from one plant ; 

 and, to insure fine saffron, ought to be gathered 

 early of a morning, the stigma and style picked out 

 and dried carefully in the sun. 



The leaves keep green in winter, but die off in 

 May ; so a saffron-bed looks very bare and ugly from 

 this month until autumn. 



English saffron is|cousidcred thebest. The Spanish 

 Azofra7i is dipped in oil to preserve it, and this is 

 supposed to take from its value. 



Saffron is a favourite remedy with old women for 

 " lowuess of spirits " (for diseases which medical 

 men would at once recognize as nervous), but it 

 will in some constitutions produce most undesirable 

 effects, and make the before crying patient burst 

 into fits of excessive laughter, reminding one of 

 those very remarkable pictures which so often 

 accompany the advertisements of " an immediate 

 cure for the toothache." 



The scent of the Saffron was highly valued by the 

 ancients. Virgil mentions "saft'ron odours." He 

 also says bees love to feed on this flower. 



" Et cum scena croco Cilici perfusa recens est," 

 writes Lucretius ; and Pliny also says that wine in 

 which saffron had been steeped was sprinkled in 

 theatres, the safirou growing in CiHcia on Mount 

 Corycus being the finest of all. 



The Hebrews call this plant, or the produce of it 

 (for I am not quite certain which), Karkom; and I 

 read in a book of Eastern travels lately that a lilac 

 flower exactly like this crocus grows on the bare 

 dry sand near " Wady Ramleh." 



The Meadow-saffron is a different plant ; from it 

 colchicum is produced : and we likewise have an 

 'L-arly purple crocus — the C. vermes, or|spring crocus ; 

 but neither of the latter possesses any medicinal 

 virtues, I believe. Helen E. Watney. 



SUPPOSED PAUASITE OP ELM. 



rriHE above was found under the bark iu com- 

 -^ pauy with Clausilia, and its description is as 

 follows : — 



The tongue, armed with closely-set recurved 

 teeth, and evidently trifid, traversed in its entire 

 length by a narrow channel, is apparently designed 

 to penetrate and extract the juices of the softer and 



decayed parts of the bark. The whole apparatus is 



Fig;. 68. Tongue of Parasite. 



represented in fig. 68 ; the three parts being folded 



toget 



ucr. 



Fig. Gd. Pygidium of Parasite, x 160. 

 Two projecting toothed processes are 



Fig. 70. Feet of Parasite. 



