ESSEX AND EARLY BOTANISTS 131 



1667-68, came up abundantly among the rubbish in 

 the Ruines." This he found a few years later, some 

 five miles from Dewlands, on the way to Witham, 

 "about the house of his honoured friend, Edward 

 Bullock, Esqre., at Faulkbourn Hall." From the 

 sporadic nature of this rare plant it is not surprising 

 that it has now entirely disappeared, but the record 

 is an interesting one. 



Ray tells us that in his day the Crocus sativus, or 

 saffron, was cultivated in the fields about Walden, 

 thence denominated Saffron Walden. " Of the cul- 

 ture whereof," he adds, " I shall say nothing, re- 

 ferring the reader to what is written by Camden." 

 Turning to Camden's Britannia we find the passage 

 of sufficient interest to quote in full. " The fields all 

 about," he says, "look very pleasant with saffron. 

 For in the month of July every third year, when the 

 roots have been taken up, and after twenty days put 

 under the turf again, about the end of September they 

 shoot forth a bluish flower, out of the midst whereof 

 hang three yellow chives of saffron, which are gathered 

 in the morning before sunrise, and being taken out of 

 the flower are dried by a gentle fire. And so wonder- 

 ful is the increase, that from every acre of ground they 

 gather eighty or an hundred pounds of wet saffron, 

 which, when it is dry, makes about twenty pounds. 

 And what is more to be admired, that ground that 

 hath born saffron three years together, will bear 

 Barley very plentifully eighteen years without dung- 

 ing, and then will bear Saffron again." The origin 

 of the cultivation of saffron in England is unknown. 

 It is commonly said, and the statement is repeated by 

 one writer after another, that it was introduced by one 

 Sir Thomas Smith into the neighbourhood of Walden 



