6o THE GENUS CROCUS. 



90, was from a drawing made in the Sharanpur Botanic Garden, the plant having 

 been obtained from the Valley of Kashmir in 1826. 



I am indebted to Mr. Isaac Anderson Henry for some corms obtained from 

 Ladak, in Little Tibet; the flowers from which differ in no respect from those of 

 the Saffron Crocus of Europe. 



Asia Minor. The following references from classical authors are sufficient to 

 shew how widely Saffron was recognised in ancient times as a product of Cilicia. 

 "Cilician," or "Corycian," were the established classical designations when speaking 

 of Saffron; and it seems that the Saffron Crocus growing in Cilicia went by the 

 poetical phrase of "Spica Cilissa." _ _ 



Strabo the geographer, who wrote during the reign of Augustus, in his description 

 of Cilicia (xiv. 5 § 5), tells us that the best Saffron { K p6 K oi) grew there in the so- 

 called Corycian "Cave," near the town of Corycus (KtpvKos), now called Korghoz. 

 He describes this "cave" as a circular hollow sheltered by surrounding cliffs. Much 

 of it stony and full of bush, with Crocus-bearing ground scattered here and there. 



Victor Hehn, in his Kulturpflanzen, p. 277, goes so far as to suppose that KcopvKos 

 itself took its name from the Crocus grown there. He says that the old Hebrew 

 form of the word k P 6ko, was Karkom. In other Semitic dialects e.g. in the tongue 

 of the Cilicians, the word may have had a different meaning but still a similar 

 sound, and so gave its name to the place; but this of course is only a speculation. 



Mr. Redhouse on the other hand suggests that the name of the place, KcopvKos 

 may be very ancient and may have been transferred to the drug. He argues that 

 the Phoenicians may have first learnt the use of Saffron from the Hittite or the 

 early inhabitants of Corycus, and naturally calling it the Corycian drug, they spread 



its name east and west. . 



Pliny 21. 6. (17) tells us that the best Saffron was that which came from Cilicia 

 especially from the Corycian mountain, and Sallust, Hist. ii. 23, "Iter vertit ad 

 corycum urbem, inclutam sped atque nemore in quo crocus gignitur." 



Cowley, in A. Couleii Plantarum, 1661, lib. i. 40, quotes— 



Corycii pressura croci. Lucan. {Pharsalia Lib. ix, 809.) 



and adds the note "Omnes poetce hoc quasi solenni quodam epitheto utuntur. 

 Corycus nomen urbis et montis in Cilicia, ubi laudatissimus crocus nascebatur." 



Terque lavet nostras spica Cilissa comas. Prop. IV (V) 6, 74. 



Et sonet accensis spica Cilissa focis? Ov. F. 1. 76. 



Et hie Cilici crocus cditus antro. Verg? Cuk.x, 400. 



Et cum scena croco Cilici pcrfusa recens est. Lucretius II. 416. 



