154 ENGLISH BOTAirr. 



Mr. Wliittaker has sent me living roots of this species from 

 Nottingham Meadows, and also of C. nudiflorus; these I have culti- 

 vated for four or five years: the Nottingham C. vernus is identical 

 with the purple Crocus of the gardens, a form not native in the north 

 of Europe. 



Purple Crocus. 

 French, Safran printanier. German, Friihliiigs Safi-an. 



SPECIES IV.-CIIOCUS NUDIFLORUS. Sm. 



Plate MD. 



Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Essicc. No. 1336. 



C. speciosus, Wils. Engl. Bot. Suppl. No. 3752 (non If. Bieh.). 



C. multifidus, Lam. B. G. Fl. Fr. Vol. III. p. 242. 



Corm stoloniferous, clothed with thin membranous coats not 

 splitting transversely but containing numerous filiform parallel fibres. 

 Leaves produced in early spring before the fruit, very narrowly linear, 

 ■with subparallel sides and re volute edges. Spathe 1-valved, obliquely 

 obtuse. Flowers solitary, appearing in autumn when no leaves are 

 present. Perianth segments when closed oblong-fusiform, much 

 shorter than the tube ; the throat purple, glabrous. Stamens about 

 three-fourths the length of the perianth segments. Stigma longer 

 than the stamens, deeply 3-cleft, the segments broadly wedgeshaped, 

 cut into slender linear filaments. 



Naturalised in meadows abundantly at Nottingham, Derby, and 

 Warrington. 



England. Perennial. Autumn. 



Corm flowering when the size of a small pea, sending out in spring 

 stolons which are thickened at the extremity ; this thickened ex- 

 tremity, by the decay of the basal part of the stolon, is set free in the 

 form of a subcylindrical corm, a little thickened towards the apex, and 

 the next season assumes the depressed subglobular form of the parent 

 corm. Leaves appearing at the end of wnnter from the minute corm 

 formed at the apex of the old corm, very slender, with a narrow white 

 line down the centre. Flowers with the perianth tube 3 to 10 inches 

 long, clothed with several sheaths below tlie spathe. Perianth seg- 

 ments 1^ to 2 inches long, pale bright purple, less inclining to blue 

 than those of C. vernus. Anthers brigiit yellow. Stigmas reddish- 

 orange, sometimes only a little higher than the anthers, at other 

 times extending considerably beyond them, remarkable for the fine 

 divisions into which they are cut. Capsule rarely perfected (at least 

 in the cultivated plant), about ^ inch long, the seeds similar to those 

 of C. vernus. 



Naked-Jiowering Crocus. 



