SAFFRON. 279 



stigma erect within the flower, and cut into three jagged 

 wedge-shaped lobes. This species is plentiful about Notting- 

 ham, and many varieties of it are cultivated in gardens. In 

 the whole of the genus, the germen is situated under ground, 

 almost close to the bulb, while the plant is in flower, but when 

 this decays, it emerges on a slender peduncle, and ripens its 

 seeds above ground ; thus nearly resembling the Colchicum, or 

 Meadow-Saffron, whose economy we have already elucidated. 

 The new bulb, or cormus of the Crocus being produced an- 

 nually on the upper part of the old one, in a short time rises to 

 the surface ; unlike the tulip and iris, whose bulbs, being re- 

 produced at the lower part, continue to descend, unless grow- 

 ing on a hard sub-soil. 



Saffron Crocus is said to have been first brought to England 

 in the time of Edward III., and introduced by a Sir Thomas 

 Smith, to the neighbourhood of Walden, in Essex, which was 

 hence called Saffron Walden. The cultivation of the plant is 

 now confined to a few parishes in the vicinity of Saffron Wal- 

 den and Cambridge. 



Culture, &c. — " The bulbs are planted in July in a rich light mould 

 with some well-rotted manure, in rows, six inches apart and six inches dis- 

 tant from each other in the rows. About the 18th of September the leaves 

 begin to appear in small pencil-like tufts, and during and after the period 

 of flowering, keep growing and gradually cover the whole bed, continuing 

 green all the winter, until May, when they die away, and the bed is bare 

 all the next summer. The flowers begin to spring up about the 3d of 

 October, with a stem about an inch above the ground ; they continue daily 

 coming up for three or four weeks ; six or eight or more rising in suc- 

 cession from one plant. They are gathered every morning during the time 

 of flowering, and the stigmata with part of the style plucked out for use, 

 the rest of the flower being thrown away. The saffron thus procured is 

 either dried in a room, in the sun, on papers, or made into cakes by a mode- 

 rate heat and pressure. At the end of three years, when the leaf is entirely 

 dead, the bulbs are taken up and cleaned, and the largest set by for planting 

 again. The increase in the bulbs is very great, but being of no use except 

 for replanting, what are not wanted for that purpose are thrown away ; and 

 as the produce of the saffron does not repay the expense, it is now entirely 

 out of cultivation as an article of commerce." * 



General Uses. — We have already mentioned that the ancients em- 

 ployed saffron as a perfume in their temples, theatres, and at their public 

 festivals. It is much used in the south of Europe, and particularly in 



* Mr. Fiske, in Stephenson and Churchill's Botany, Art. cr. 



