IRIDACE®. 151 
than the stamens, deeply 3-cleft, with the divisions narrowly wedge- 
shaped, channelled, truncate, slightly notched and indistinctly crenate 
at the apex. 
Naturalised in Barton Park, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, where it 
grows in company with Crocus biflorus, Ornithogalum nutans, and 
Muscari racemosum. 
[England.] Perennial. Spring. 
Corm flowering when about the size of a black currant, clothed with 
numerous coats, which divide into broad flattened fibres, and are 
continued upwards, forming chocolate-coloured sheaths surrounding 
the leaves and stem. Leaves appearing with the young flowers, and 
very short till these have faded, a little broader than those of C. 
biflorus, dark green with a narrow white central line. Perianth tube 
extending 1 to 1} inch above the spathe; perianth segments 1 to 1} 
inch long, broadly oblanceolate-elliptical, subacute, rich orange-yellow. 
Anthers yellow, much longer than the filaments; stigma yellowish- 
orange, with the segments erect. Capsule ~ inch long. ode pale 
red, about the size of rape seed. 
This differs from the Yellow Crocus of the gardens (C. luteus, 
Lam.) in the thicker coats of the corm, the narrower leaves, the 
smaller and more orange flowers, the segments of which when closed 
are less constricted a little above the base, and less swollen beyond 
the middle, and have no greenish lines at the base. 
Golden Crocus. 
The Crocus was formerly much cultivated in Britain for the sake of its orange- 
coloured stigmas, which are the saffron of commerce and medicine. Saffron had at 
one time a great reputation as a cordial and aromatic medicine. It is mentioned by 
the earliest Greek writers, and was well known to the Romans, who used it not only 
in medicine and cookery, but as a cosmetic. The ladies of Italy, envying the blond 
locks of more northern nations, introduced the custom of dyeing their hair with 
saffron, a practice which called down upon them the anathemas of some of the early 
Fathers of the Church; and Tertullian, Cyprian, and Jerome agree in declaring 
that the hue thus attained was neither more nor less than a “ presage of the fires of 
hell.” Little less seems to have been the prejudice excited by the use of saffron as a 
dye even for linen, when Ireland fell under the English yoke. The subject becamo 
one of severe legislation, as well as of bitter reproach. A statute in the reign of 
Henry VIII. forbids the Irish, under penalty, from wearing any “ shirt, smock, kercher, 
bendel, neckercher, mocket, or linen cap, dyed with saffron.” Sir Henry Ellis suggests 
that the dye was adopted for its ornamental colour, but that seems scarcely probable, 
when many less expensive dyes would yield the same colour. Most contemporary 
writers attribute the custom to a belief that it was good for the health, “ mitigating 
the effects of their humid climate.” Christopher Calton, in 1591, says, ‘‘ The saffron 
hath power to quicken the spirits; and the virtue thereof pierceth by and by to the 
heart, provoking laughter and merriment, and they say that those properties come 
by the influence of the sun, unto whom it is subject, from whom she is ayded, by his 
