154 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
Mr. Whittaker has sent me living roots of this species from 
Nottingham Meadows, and also of C. nudiflorus; these I have culti- 
vated for four or five years: the Nottingham C. vernus is identical 
with the purple Crocus of the gardens, a form not native in the north 
of Europe. 
Purple Crocus. 
French, Safran printanier. German, F'riihlings Safran. 
SPECIES IV.—CROCUS NUDIFLORUS. Sn. 
Pirate MD. 
Billot, F). Gall. et Germ. Exsice. No. 1356. 
C. speciosus, Wils. Engl. Bot. Suppl. No. 3752 (non M. Bieb.), 
C. multifidus, Zam. D.C. Fl. Fr. Vol. IIT. p. 242. 
Corm stoloniferous, clothed with thin membranous coats not 
splitting transversely but containing numerous filiform parallel fibres. 
Leaves produced in early spring before the fruit, very narrowly linear, 
with subparallel sides and revolute edges. Spathe 1-valved, obliquely 
obtuse. Flowers solitary, appearing in autumn when no leaves are 
present. Perianth segments when closed oblong-fusiform, much 
shorter than the tube; the throat purple, glabrous. Stamens about 
three-fourths the length of the perianth segments. Stigma longer 
than the stamens, deeply 3-cleft, the segments broadly wedgeshaped, 
cut into slender linear filaments. 
Naturalised in meadows abundantly at Nottingham, Derby, and 
Warrington. 
England. Perennial. Autumn. 
Corm flowering when the size of a small pea, sending out in spring 
stolons which are thickened at the extremity; this thickened ex- 
tremity, by the decay of the basal part of the stolon, is set free in the 
form of a subcylindrical corm, a little thickened towards the apex, and 
the next season assumes the depressed subglobular form of the parent 
corm. Leaves appearing at the end of winter from the minute corm 
formed at the apex of the old corm, very slender, with a narrow white 
line down the centre. Flowers with the perianth tube 3 to 10 inches 
long, clothed with several sheaths below the spathe. Perianth seg- 
ments 1} to 2 inches long, pale bright purple, less inclining to blue 
than those of C. vernus. <Anthers bright yellow. Stigmas reddish- 
orange, sometimes only a little higher than the anthers, at other 
times extending considerably beyond them, remarkable for the fine 
divisions into which they are cut. Capsule rarely perfected (at least 
in the cultivated plant), about } inch long, the seeds similar to those 
of C. vernus. 
Naked-jlowering Crocus. 
