that Mrs. Bunny plans to feature in her new catagory
of the history & story's of Flowers.
I love seeing my garden start to bloom in the middle of
February because I know that Spring is not far behind.
My main research can from the book:
100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names
by Diana Wells, Published by Algonquin Books of
Chapel Hill, Copywrited 1997.
"Krokos" was the Greek name for the autum-flowering saffron crocus, which has been cultivated from antiquity, but which hardly anyone grows today. (That is except me) The nicest legend about its origin is of Zeus and Hera making love so passionately that the heat of their ardor made the bank on which they lay burst open with crocuses.
The first spring crocuses were sent to England from France by Jean Robin, curator of the Jardin du Roi in Paris. John Gerard's famous Herball describes the "wilde or Spring Saffron" as a novelty compared to the "best-knowne" saffron.
Saffron crocuses are pale purple, and Gerard talks about the new colors of white and a "perfect shing yellow colour, seeming a far off to be a hot glowing cole fire. The purple spring crocus, he says, "lovers of plants have gotten into their gardens" too.
Saffron was always a valuable crop. Measured ounce for ounce it was often more valuable than gold; it take four thousand stigmas to make just one ounce of saffron.
The saffron crocus's name originally comes from the Arabic za'faran, used in the Middle East from ancient times.
The best story about its introduction is Hakluyt's, in English Voiages (1589). He says "a pilgrim, proposing to do good to his countrey, stole a head of Saffron, and hid the same in his Palmer's staffe, which he had made hollow before of purpose, and so he brought the root into this realme with ventue of its life, for if he had been taken, by the law of the countrey from whence it came, he had died for the fact."
It was dangerous stuff to fool with: conviction for adulterating saffron carried the deah penalty, and in the fifteenth century Jobast Findeker was burned alive in Germany, long with his bags of impure saffron.
Crocus roots, or corms, are actually thickened stalks, and these were brought over to America by settlers. Mice and rats love them, but a few must have arrived safely and come up in cheerfull clusters around cabin doors after the first grueling winters.
Squirrels dig them up too, and birds love to peck the petals off -- although they are, like Gerard, fonder of the yellow ones.
and would like to see more in the series. If so you can email
me at the box below or sign my guestbook with your comments.
My SincereThanks - Mrs. BJ Bunny
