MEADOW SAFFBON. 



Colchicum autumnale. Nat. 

 Ord., Melanthacece. 



EW of our flowers are more 

 delicately beautiful than the 

 meadow saffron. Its refined 

 colour is too pale for an 

 altogether satisfactory repre- 

 sentation on our white paper, 

 but those who have seen it 

 springing up amongst the 

 grass of the pasture or the 

 weeds of the hedgerow will 

 scarcely have failed to have 

 noticed and admired its 

 delicate and fragile grace. 

 This "leafless orphan of the 

 year/' much as we may ad- 

 mire it, is a most unwelcome 

 plant to the farmer, and the more 

 so because if found at all it is 

 ordinarily abundant. We have in 

 some places seen quite a purple flush of colour on the 

 meadows from the presence of countless blossoms, but it 

 is a sad blot on the pasturage to the eye of the owner, for 

 it takes the place of much that might be edible. Though 

 animals ordinarily carefully shun it, many instances have 



