CROCUS. 
sweet fragrance and flaunting stigmata as scarlet as in the best, but 
not tasselled. The leaves come with the flowers. (Italy, with a 
variety C. 1. melitensis from Malta, adorned yet further with violet 
featherings.) A princess among Autumn Crocus. 
C. medius bears its fine lavender blossoms in October all along the 
rough places of the Riviera. It may be known by its wildly tasselled 
scarlet stigmata, as well as by the marked star of violet lines in its 
throat. 
C. niveus, Bowles (marathoniseus, Held.), springs in the high places 
of Taygetos, and glorifies such gardens as can afford it, from October 
to December—the finest of all white Crocus known, with yellow anthers 
and stigmata of scarlet, the floral spathes just appearing above ground, 
the outer one having a greenish tip. 
C. sativus is the true Saffron Crocus, but in the garden is chary of 
its purple flowers unless set high on a specially warm and well-drained 
ledge. The flaunting saffroned stigmata are undivided, and there is a 
star of purple in the throat of the purple flower; while the leaves 
appear before them, and are fringed with hairs at their edge. C. e. 
Cartwrightianus is a small variable form from Greece: while C. s. 
Thomasii is an Italian representative of the species. 
SECTION III—NAKED FLOWERERS, WITH NO BASAL 
SHEATH AT ALL 
Group I.—NETTED CoRMS 
C. ancyrensis opens in February, a little golden star almost 
always undefiled with brown, and with scarlet stigmata. 
C. cancellatus—A beautiful early-flowering species of September, 
with white flowers appearing before the leaves, and stigmata slashed 
and fringy. It is striped in varying degrees of purple, and the 
form C.c. cilicus has a ground of delicate lavender blue. (EK. Europe 
to Asia Minor, &c.) 
C. dalmaticus comes very early in the year, with flowers which are 
buff or grey outside, opening into stars of rosy lilao. 
C. gargaricus flowers before the leaves, with goblets of richest 
orange in the dawn of the Spring. 
C. reticulatus from Eastern Europe has a separate basal tunic, 
unlike dalmaticus, which has none at all; and very various blossoms 
of mauve or white striped externally. 
C. Sieberi breaks upon the world in January and February with 
flowers of soft purple, and a bright orange throat. It is a vigorous 
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