PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 2^9 
like gold, and apply it with the same glue upon letters or other 
places which you wish to ornament with gold or silver; and 
when you have polished it with a tooth, take Saffron with 
which silk is colored, moistening it with clear of egg without 
water, and when it has stood a night, on the following day 
cover with a pencil the places which you wish to gild, the 
rest holding the place of silver” (Book i. c. 23, Hendrie’s 
translation). 
Though the chief fame of the Saffron Crocus is as a field 
plant, yet it is also a very handsome flower; but it is a most 
capricious one, which may account for the area of cultivation 
being so limited. In some places it entirely refuses to flower, 
as it does in my own garden, where I have cultivated it for 
many years but never saw a flower, while in a neighbour’s 
garden, under apparently the very same conditions of soil and 
climate, it flowers every autumn. But if we cannot succeed 
with the Saffron Crocus, there are many other Croci which 
were known in the time of Shakespeare, and grown not “ for 
any other use than in regard of their beautiful flowers of several 
varieties, as they have been carefully sought out and preserved 
by divers to furnish a garden of dainty curiosity.” Gerard had 
in his garden only six species; Parkinson had or described 
thirty-one different sorts, and after his time new kinds were 
not so much sought after till Dean Herbert collected and 
studied them. His monograph of the Crocus, in 1847, con- 
tained the account of forty-one species, besides many varieties. 
The latest arrangement of the family by Mr. George Maw, of 
Broseley, contains sixty-eight species, besides varieties; of 
these all are not yet in cultivation, but every year sees some 
fresh addition to the number. And the Croci are so beautiful 
that we cannot have too many of them ; they are, for the most 
part, perfectly hardy, though some few require a little protection 
in winter; they are of an infinite variety of colour, and some 
flower in the spring and some in the autumn. Most of us call 
the Crocus a spring flower, yet there are more autumnal than 
vernal species, but it is as a spring flower that we most value 
it. The common yellow Crocus is almost as much “ the first- 
