COLCHICUM. 
upper alps in the earliest days of August, with countless dainty 
chaliced stars of lilac about 3 inches high—the unintrusive foliage, 
of two narrow leaves, appearing in the following spring. It is always 
quite a local occurrence in the Alps, but leaps from the earth like a 
Jack-in-the-box the moment the hay is carried from the Mont Cenis 
or the upper valley of Macugnaga. 
C. amabile, from the top of Delphi in Euboea, blooms also in the 
autumn, but with rather smaller goblets, most beautifully tessellated. 
C. arenarium has much narrower leaves and smaller flowers than 
in C. autumnale. 
C. autumnale is distinctly coarser and ranker, but its white form is 
pure, and even the double white, tinged with a faint warm flush of 
flesh-colour towards the centre, is by no means to be scorned ; but the 
leaves of all are so overweening and coarse that they must never be 
in a forward or choice place. 
C. Bertolonii (or C. pusillum) blooms in autumn, with its foliage, in 
the low dry places of Syria, Attica, and the Argolid. The segments of 
the blossom are narrow and thin. 
C. Bivonae is one ot the very best, having flowers rather larger 
than C. autumnale, tessellated, and of the fullest segments, forming an 
incurving cup-design that might have served for Benvenuto Cellini. 
It is a species of obscure origin, probably from Crete. 
C. Bornmuellert is iicomparably the grandest of all our Colchicums ; 
greater in size of bloom and height of stature than C. speciosum, with 
far more stately expanding chalices, large and sumptuous in the 
segments, and in colour of a tender rose-lilac, enhanced by the broad 
base of white. It also blooms earlier, and is in full beauty through 
August and September, in an endless succession of tall goblets from 
the huge and comfortable-looking corm. It is, however, rare and 
rather expensive at present. 
 C. bulbocodioeides. See C. montanum. 
C. byzantinum, general in Southern Europe, may always be known 
by its knobbly irregular great corm, the size and shape of a closed 
fist. Its flowers are after the giant style of C. Bornmiilleri, but rather 
smaller and paler, with the segments shorter, broader, and blunter 
than in C. speciosum and C. latifolium. The leaves are big and 
corrugated, following in spring after the blossoms, which have been 
abundantly and unanimously produced in autumn. Its only asso- 
ciation with the Imperial City is probably as having been found there 
in gardens ; and it is brilliantly figured in the Bot. Mag., t. 1122. 
C. candidum, from Cilicia, is in the way of C. autumnale, but has 
poor pallid stars made up of long, narrow strip-like segments that 
229 
