Time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy has been employed to probe the ultrafast emission observed in gold nanospheres and nanorods. The decay of the emission was found to be less than or equal to 50 fs. The ultrafast emission from nanorods has been directly compared to that for nanospheres and the dispersion of the relative local field enhancement factor was obtained and compared with calculations. Measurements with both visible and ultraviolet excitations have been analyzed. These results give the first observation and analysis of the mechanism for the local field-enhanced ultrafast emission in gold nanorods and nanospheres.