CULTIVATED PLANTS. 151 



a very low rate. The Marquis Cosimo Ridolfi, however, whose 

 name is so frequently meutioned iu these pages in connection with 

 the improvement and extension of the agriculture of his country, 

 appears recently to have met with better success iu the estab- 

 lishment of the growth of madder in the neighbourhood of 

 Spoleto. 



Sajioicer (Carthamus tinctorius), much cultivated in some 

 parts of Italy, especially in the Eomagna, some two or three 

 centuries back, when first it came to be generally used for dyeing 

 silk, is now much neglected there, for it is found that that which 

 is imported from Spain or from East India yields a richer colour; 

 and even that from the Levant and from Egypt, although con- 

 sidered as inferior to the Indian and Spanish, is still superior to 

 the Italian. The plant was probably unknown to the ancient 

 Romans, but Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and many other Greek 

 authors mention it under the name of Cnecon or Cnicon. It was 

 not then grown as a tinctorial plant, but for the medicinal 

 properties of its seeds, and the flowers were only used as a 

 condiment. The exact period of its introduction into Italy is 

 doubtful. Pegoletti in the fourteenth century speaks of it 

 as an article of importation only for the use of the dyers ; 

 Matthioli, in the sixteenth, mentions its cultivation, although he 

 alludes only to its medicinal, not to its tinctorial, properties. 

 One of the popular names quoted by Targioni, that of Sardcenic 

 saffron, would seem to indicate that the Italians had it from the 

 Moors, probably dui'ing their dominion in Sicily. 



The native country of the safflower is involved in great 

 obscurity. East India is given by Professor Targioni on the 

 authoi'ity of systematic botanical works, but we learn from the 

 Indian botanists of the present day that it is there only known in 

 cultivation, and that in the cold season, a circumstance showing 

 clearly that it is not an indigenous plant brought into cultivation, 

 but an importation from a different climate. It may possibly 

 prove to be of African origin, if we may judge iJrom the 

 Abyssinian specimens distributed as indigenous among SJhimper's 

 collection. These specimens have much more spinous involucres 

 than the variety commonly cultivated, and, in other respects, 

 seem to show, at any rate, a nearer approach to a wild state. 



Saffron (Crocus sativus) is a native of Italy, as well as of many 

 other parts of Europe and of the Levant, and has long been 

 cultivated for the odour and flavour, as well as in more modern 

 days for the tinctorial properties, of the styles. It is mentioned 



