LONG PURPLE (_Arum masculatam_ or _Orchis mascula_) is very closely related to our woodland Jack-in-the-Pulpit. It has many names: Arum; Cookoo-pint, Cookoo-pintle, Wake-Robin, Friar's-cowl, Lords-and-Ladies, Cow-and-Calves, Ramp, Starchwort, Bloody-men's-finger, and Gethsemane, as the plant is said to have been growing at the Cross and to have received some drops of the Savior's blood. This flower is mentioned in Tennyson's "A Dirge": Round thee blow, self-pleached deep, Bramble roses, faint and pale, And long purples of the dale. Dr. Forbes Watson writes: "I use the old name Wake Robin because it is so full of poetry--to think of the bird aroused from sleep by the soundless ringing of the bell. Arum, or Lords and Ladies, is the more usual name." The plant is under the dominion of Mars, so the astrologers said. IX _Saffron Crocus and Cuckoo-flowers_ SAFFRON CROCUS (_Crocus verus sativus Autumnalis_). Shakespeare speaks of saffron as a color--"the saffron Wings of Iris" and "saffron to color the Warden [pear] pies." He never mentions the crocus from which the saffron was obtained, yet a Shakespeare garden should have this plant represented. Saffron had long been known in England; for in the time of Edward III a pilgrim from the East had brought, concealed in his staff, a root of the precious Arabic _al zahafaran_. In Shakespeare's time saffron was used for soups and sauces and to color and flavor pies, cakes, and pastry-confection. Saffron was also important medicinally, and for dyeing silks and other materials. The beautiful orange-red stigmas, the _crocei odores_ of Virgil, were dried and the powder pressed into cakes and sold in the shops. "The true saffron," writes Parkinson, "that is used in meats and medicines, shooteth out his narrow long green leaves first, and, after a while, the flowers, in the middle of them, appear about the end of August, in September and October, according to the soil and climate where they grow. These flowers are composed of six leaves apiece, of a murrey, or reddish purple color, having a show of blue in them. In the middle of these flowers there are some small yellow chives standing upright, which are unprofitable; but, besides these, each flower hath two, three, or four greater and longer chives hanging down, upon, or between, the leaves, which are of a fiery red color and are the true blades of saffron which are used physically, or otherwise, and no other." The raising of saffron was a great industry. Old Tusser gave the good advice to Pare saffron plot, Forget it not. His dwelling made trim, Look shortly for him! When harvest is gone, Then Saffron comes on; A little of ground Brings Saffron a pound. Saffron Walden in Essex and Saffron Hill in London received their names because of the quantity of saffron crocus grown in those places.