iRinAci:,'E. l.'il 



than the stamens, deeply 3-clcft, 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, Omithogalum 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 Avith 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 H inch above the spathe ; perianth segments 1 to 11 

 inch long, broadly oblanceolate-elliptical, subacute, rich orange-yellow. 

 Anthers yellow, much longer than the filaments; stigma yellowish - 

 orange, with the segments erect. Capsule f inch long. Seeds pale 

 red, about the size of rape seed. 



This difters 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 mucli cultivated in Britain for the sake of its orange- 

 coloured stigmas, which are the saffron of commerce and medicine. Safi'ron 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 TertuUian, 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 became 

 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 Hnen 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 picrcoth by and by to tho 

 heart, provoking laughter and merriment, and they say that those properties como 

 by the influence of the sun, unto whom it is subject, from whom she is ayded, by his 



