4-2 Transactions of the Horticultural Society. 



History Society of Moscoxv, vol. v.; but subsequent discoveries 

 render it incomplete. The same may be said of an attempt 

 by M. Bouche, in the Linnaa, vol. v., in 1826. M. Gay of 

 Paris has long been engaged in preparing a monograph of 

 this genus, having cultivated most of the species under his 

 own eye in the garden of the Luxembourg. In 1826, Ber- 

 toloni and Tenore published papers on the Italian crocuses. 



" What I now propose to communicate will not at all, I believe, inter- 

 fere with or destroy the interest in M. Gay's projected monograph. It is 

 not my design to take any notice here of the autumnal crocuses which v.'C 

 have in our gardens ; these are all originally wild, and, consequently, natu- 

 ral species ; whilst those spring plants, of which I do propose to give an 

 account, may all, with the exception of Crocus pusillus, and of the native 

 British C. vernus, be considered as garden productions ; or, if not origin- 

 ally so, they have been so long in cultivation as to have very much deviated 

 from their native types ; and the characters of the species I shall have to 

 observe on having all, except those of C. pusillus and C. vernus, been 

 deduced from garden plants, they will probably be found to difler. much 

 from those which belong to any one of the truly wild species. Those I 

 propose to describe, and under which the varieties in the garden of the 

 Horticultural Society have been arranged, are C. susianus, C. sulphureus, 

 C. stellaris, C. lageneeflorus, C. liiteus, C. biHorus, C. argenteus, C. pusil- 

 lus, C. versicolor, and C, vernus ,• all, without doubt, with the exception 

 above stated, ancient occupiers of the flower-border, but only recently 

 distinguished and separated from each other." 



Parkinson, in 1629, describes 27 kinds of spring crocuses, 

 some of which appear to be lost ; and some of his sorts, as 

 well as of those of Miller, in his Dictionary of 1731, cannot be 

 distinctly made out. Weston, in 1771, compiled a list of the 

 genus Crocus, ^0 of which were spring-flowering ones ; but it 

 is doubtful if the plants were actually in existence at the time. 



" Of the species I propose to notice, C. argenteus and C. lacteus are 

 new, and C. [)usillus and C. vernus are the only natural species. The latter, 

 though only noted by Linnaeus as a variet}', must be considered as founded 

 by him. C. pusillus was established by Tenore, C. biflorus by Miller, and 

 C. luteus by Lamarck. The remaining species of this paper, C. susianus, 

 C. sulphureus, C. Iagena,'fl6rus, and C. versicolor, have all been formed, and 

 first distinguished, in the different periodical botanical works which have in 

 later times been published in this country. 



" The varieties of Crocus in the lists of the modern Dutch gardeners 

 vary from 20 to perhaps double that number ; but they have only florists' 

 names, they are without description, and are not arranged in any sys- 

 tematic manner ; so that those belonging to different classes or species 

 are not distinguishable from each other. The names given to crocuses, 

 also, by the Dutch florists do not seem to be affixed by general consent ; 

 since their different catalogues frequently give different names to the same 

 kinds. It is, however, from the Dutch collections that several of our best 

 varieties, especially of those belonging to C. vernus, have been procured. 



" New kinds from seeds are frequently raised both in England and in 

 Hollantl ; possibly, by more attention than has hitherto been paid to this 

 part of their cultivation, much improvement in the beauty of these flowers 

 may result. It will be seen that some very excellent varieties of the col- 



