336 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
The much rarer Alpine Tulip (Lloydia serotina) 
has retained the more open, star-shaped blossom of 
white or yellowish hue, with purple veins to show 
the way to the nectaries. The honey is secreted by 
a thick ridge at the base of the perianth-segments 
and along their middle, easily accessible to the short- 
lipped insects, chiefly flies, by which it is fertilised. 
The inner series (three) of stamens ripen and discharge 
their pollen before the stigmas are mature, which 
favours cross-fertilisation. In some specimens the 
stigma is on a level with the anthers, and here self- 
fertilisation is favoured. The plant is especially 
interesting as a probable remnant of the flora of the 
Great Ice Age, its stations in this country being a 
few rocky ledges of the Snowdon range, and else- 
where it is found abundantly close up to the line of 
perpetual snow. 
The Meadow Saffron (Colchicum autumnale) looks 
uncommonly like a Crocus, but whereas the Crocus 
family are all content with three stamens and one 
style, the Saffron has six stamens and three styles, 
which testify to its Liliaceous character. It has a 
corm, too, not like that of the Crocus, but of different 
shape, and covered with shining scales of a chestnut 
colour. Its flat, narrow, lance-shaped leaves are not 
Crocus-like, but its pale-purple flowers are, the ovary 
lying within the corm, and the thread-like styles 
reaching up therefrom. The yellow stamens are 
attached to the sides of the expanded portion of the 
flower, and the honey is secreted by their basal 
portion, and runs into grooves in the perianth, where 
it is protected by fringing hairs. The stigmas 
mature before the anthers, so that the first chance is 
