three bright yellow stigmas. These stigmas are the only valuable part of the plant, since they are in fact the saffron; but you will understand this better when I have described to you the whole process.

The ground chosen for the crocuses to grow upon, ought always to be very much exposed, and at a distance from any plantation that might prevent the free current of the air. Two or three months are spent in ploughing and getting the land ready, and little trenches are dug, in which to plant the bulbs. The trenches are only a few inches apart, and on that account it takes a great number of bulbs to fill them. When the crocuses come into flower, it is the right time to gather them, for they are never suffered to go to seed. The owner gets several persons to assist him, and they begin to gather very early in the morning, before the flowers are expanded. The blossoms are thrown by handsfull into baskets, and at eleven o'clock the work ceases for that day, and the flowers are carried home.

The next process is to spread them upon a table: the stigmas are carefully picked out, and the rest of the plant thrown away as useless. They have then to be dried, and in order to do

this, a fire is lighted in a small kiln that is made on purpose, and can be carried about. On the top of the kiln, a hair cloth is spread, and upon it the stigmas are placed, folded in sheets of white paper. A coarse blanket is doubled five or six times, and pressed down upon them by means of a board and some heavy weights. The heat of the kiln is at first very great, that the moisture contained in the saffron may be thoroughly dried up. But after a time the heat is gradually lessened; the saffron is turned every half hour; by means of pressing, it has formed itself into cakes, and at the end of a day and a night is fit for use.

The principal saffron grounds are in Essex and Cambridgeshire, but as England cannot furnish sufficient for home use, it is brought to us from abroad. The immense number of crocuses required to produce even an ounce of saffron, will always cause it to have a high price in the market.

The order to which the crocus belongs, is called Irideæ, because the flowers, included in it, have their colors so exquisitely blended that they have been compared to the rainbow. The yellow water flag, or flower-de-luce, is the commonest of the tribe, and you have, no doubt,

often seen it in great abundance, fringing the borders of some canal or stream, or forming a bright yellow patch wherever the ground happens to be soft and moist. These patches of flag are the favourite resort of the corn crake, and on a summer's evening you may hear his curious note, something like the creaking of a gate upon its hinges.

The yellow flag is among the gayest and prettiest of our wild flowers, but because it fades so quickly, and grows so near the water, you can hardly gather it, or carry it home as a nosegay. The whole plant is extremely harsh, but the leaves form excellent thatch, and when dried, cattle will feed upon them. The root is said to be a good remedy for the toothache, and the seeds have been roasted as a substitute for coffee.

The purple flag is not so common as the yellow, and although it is called the fœtid iris, its smell is thought by some persons to resemble roast beef or mutton.

The roots of some of the foreign species are aromatic; one of them has an odor like that of violets, and is chewed to give an agreeable perfume to the breath. It is the orris or iris root of the shops.

One of the most curious of the flags is called the "Afternoon iris," or the "Scissor plant." It has the most slender stem and the smallest flower of any of the tribe, and the corolla never expands until after mid-day. The name of Scissor plant is given to it by the Moguls, (whose country it inhabits) because of the scissorshaped fork which supports the flowers. Its beauty is very short-lived, for before the shades of evening approach, it begins to roll itself round and round, and very soon withers and dies.

The common blue iris,† that grows in our gardens, yields a most beautiful paint for water colours. The petals are collected before they are fully opened, and pounded in a stone mortar with a wooden pestle: they are then put into a glass, and placed for some days in a cellar. At the end of a fortnight the mass, which has become liquid, is set over the fire in a glass pot, till about a third is consumed. Alum is then put into it, until it is quite clear and acquires its fine blue color.

In the time of Clovis, king of France, the national escutcheon was strewed with a number of Fleurs-de-lis. But Louis the Seventh chose + Iris germanica.

*Iris dichotoma.

the flower as his peculiar emblem, when he went to join the crusade, about the middle of

the twelfth century. On this account it was called fleur-de-Louis, or Louis' flower, which was soon corrupted into fleur-de-Luce, and afterwards into fleur-de-lis, or lily flower, though it has no relationship to the lily.

During the