8j6 THE GENUS CROCUS. 



Pistil about an inch (0.025 metre) high from the throat; the Style dividing above the summit of the 



anthers, and shortly produced into yellow, entire, spreading stigmata. 

 Scape at the flowering-time from an inch and a half to two inches (0.038-0.050 metre) high. 

 Capsule and Seed unknown. 



Crocus caspius is allied to C. Boryi with which Herbert associated it; but it is 

 readily distinguished from that species by its unbranched spreading stigmata. It 

 was discovered by Hohenacker in 1838, on the western and southern coasts of the 

 Caspian, and has been collected in northern Persia and Georgia. It has been 

 recorded from near Astrabad, in shady places under bushes near the shore of the 

 Caspian, where, according to Colonel Beresford Lovett, it is known under the nattve 

 name of "Gul shir pauir" ; from Mazanderan Resht, Astara, Lenkoran, Baku, and 

 Astrakhan, but there is some doubt about its occurrence in the last named locality. 

 Omitting this, its range of latitude would be between 3 6f and 4 o*° north, and of 

 longitude, between 48? and 5 4i° east. If it occurs at Astrakhan, its range of 

 latitude must be extended six degrees further north. It commences to flower in 

 October and November, and Colonel Beresford Lovett, late Her Majesty's Consul 

 at Astrabad, informs me that it continues in flower up to April. It has never been 

 in cultivation; some roots Colonel Lovett procured for me in the late autumn of 

 1 88 1, having been lost in transit. 



REFERENCES TO PLATE XLVI. 



Fig. 1. Flowering-state, autumnal, actual size. 



Fig! 2. Diagrammatic dissection of scape, ovary, and spathes, actual size. 



Fig. 3. Pistil, magnified six-fold. 



Fig. 4. Stamens and Pistil, magnified two-fold. 



