HISTORY AND LITERATURE. +3 



Class 2.— Spring Crocuses with various coloured flowers, other than yellow, having 

 the mouths of the flower tubes without hairs, including — 

 biflorus, and three sub-varieties, 

 argenteus, and two sub-varieties, 

 pusillus, 

 versicolor, and eighteen sub-varieties. 



Class 3.— Spring Crocuses with various coloured flowers, not yellow, having the 

 mouths of the flower tubes hairy, including vermis, and fifty-seven 

 sub-varieties. 



These eleven supposed species include but six that modern crocologists consider 

 entitled to specific rank, viz: 



Sabine also gives a synopsis of the species, and groups them somewhat on 

 the plan which was afterwards followed by Herbert; the primary divisions being 

 determined by the presence or absence of a basal spathe, and the sub-groups by 

 the character of the corm-tunic: the presence of a single or double proper spathe 

 or bract is also used for further sub-grouping. 



1834.— Guiseppe Moretti published at Pavia his Nonnulla dc Crocis italicis. 



Up to the time of Gay, who wrote on the genus from the year 1827 to 1831, 

 scarcely more than from twelve to fifteen species of Crocus seem to have been 

 known. 



Gay's observations, especially on the eastern species, brought up the enumer- 

 ation to about twenty-five species. 



The next great advance was by The Hon. and Very Rev. W. Herbert, Dean 

 of Manchester, who wrote on the genus from the year 1841 to 1847, and who was 

 the first to suggest a complete systematic grouping and classification. His first 

 published observations appeared in his Crocorum Synopsis, in the Botanical Magazine 

 of 1 84 1, Sub. Tab. 3861 et sea. 



In the Botanical Register, Vol. XXIX of 1843, plate twenty-one represents 

 a Corsican Crocus under the name of insularis, which is probably, however, 



