CROCUS SATIVUS. 171 



seems to me no more entitled to specific rank than the other forms of this group. 

 The conn is somewhat smaller than that of the type and the pistil shorter in 

 relation to the height of the stamens. The most remarkable character is the great 

 height to which the cap of the tunic is produced as a bunch of silky fibres above 

 the summit of the corm. It was collected by Haussknecht at an altitude of five 

 thousand feet on Delechani and Sangur, calcareous mountains between Kermanchah 

 (Kermanshah) and Hamedan, in western Persia; and on October 18th, 1865, at 

 Kharput (Karput, Charput,) in Kurdistan. This is the most eastern point at which 

 any form of C. sativus occurs in an undoubtedly wild state. 



Var. 4. Ehvesii, Plate XXIX c, is closely allied to the well-known and widely 

 distributed form, var. Pallasii, but it is a plant of larger stature. The corm is large 

 like that of the type and of the var. Cartwrightianus ; the pistil is short, scarcely 

 exceeding the stamens, as in var. Pallasii. In modern times it was first collected 

 in the spring of 1874 by Mr. Elwes, on the Boz Dagh (Tmolus), east of Smyrna; 

 and in May, 1877, I found it abundantly, up to altitudes of from three thousand 

 to four thousand feet, on the Taktale Dagh, Nymph Dagh, and the Yamanlah 

 Dagh, near Smyrna, and also a smaller form on the Hippurite Limestone Plateau 

 of Boujah, near Smyrna. The following passage from Virgil may refer to it:— 

 "Nonne vides croceos ut Tmolus [Boz Dagh] odores". — Georg. i. 56. It flowers in 

 October. 



Var. 5. Pallasii, Plate XXIX d, is smaller in all its parts than the var. Ehvesii. 

 The corm is notably smaller than that of any of the other forms; the pistil as in 

 var. Ehvesii, is nearly always shorter than the stamens. Var. Pallasii, with which 

 I associate the South Italian C. Thoviasii of Tenore, is by far the most widely 

 distributed form of C. sativus, ranging between longitude 15 east, and longitude 

 35 east, and latitude 35 north, and latitude 46° north. The Italian plant was first 

 described by Tenore. In the neighbourhood of Taranto, and the district west of 

 Taranto, it appears to be fairly abundant. It had not been found in recent years 

 till Mr. F. N. Reid re-discovered it in the Gravina de Leucaspide, and the grounds 

 surrounding Sir J. P. Lacaita's house at Leucaspide, between the Plain of Taranto 

 and the Murgie Mountains. Mr. C. C. Lacaita also found it in the stony woods of 

 Quercus Cerris, near San Basilio, between Bari and Taranto, where it commences 

 to flower at the end of October. The older records include the following localities: — 

 woody places Serra di San Bruno, Calabria; near Laterza (La Terza); and at Foje 

 and Montocchio, near Potenza, in the Basilicata. It was also found by Signor Siacci 

 about the year 1830, in meadows near Gravina, in Apulia; but the late Professor 

 Cesati informed me that the ground has since been broken up and the plant 

 extirpated. Another recorded habitat, Monte della Stella, given by Tenore, is erro- 

 neous and refers to C. longiflorus. 



