38 DUTCH BULBS AND GARDENS 



our cookery. Especially is this the case in Russia, 

 where the law holds that all food-colouring must 

 be vegetable, a singular law, when one comes to 

 think that all the alkaloid poisons are of vegetable 

 origin, and for real nastiness it is hard to beat some 

 of the dyes of Nature's providing. 



But it was as a drug that the saffron crocus was 

 most greatly prized among the peoples of middle 

 and western Europe. In the late middle ages it 

 appears to have been much used as an eye-wash, 

 one feels it was fortunate folk did not have to try 

 their eyes then as now. By Gerard's time it was 

 in great favour for many things ; he speaks of it 

 as making "the senses more quicke and lively, 

 shaking off heavie and drowsie sleep, and making a 

 man merrie." " It is a herb of the Sun and under 

 the Lion," writes N. Culpeper, student of physic 

 and astrology in 1652. " Let not above 10 grains 

 be given at one time, for if the Sun, which is the 

 fountain of life, may dazzle the eyes and make 

 them blinde, a Cordial being taken in an inordinate 

 quantity may hurt the heart instead of helping it." 

 This view possibly led to crocus standing in an 

 early Victorian Language of Flowers for " excess," 

 or in the generous way that one small flower 

 might then be interpreted to mean a whole phrase 



