CROCUSES 553 
dry weather they receive water. In October they are lifted and slowly 
dried in baskets in the sun, and afterwards buried in boxes of sand, 
which are then placed under a stage in a cool-house. Seedlings are 
easily raised from spring-sown seeds in a little warmth, and pricked out 
in a sunny frame. They flower when two years old. For pot culture 
the bulbs should be planted: early in the year, and the pots placed in a 
cold frame, giving no water until the leaves begin to appear, when it 
may be given in small quantities, to be gradually increased with the 
growth of roots and development of the plant. 
Description of Tigridia Pavonia. The plant depicted is the var. 
Plate 255. conchiflora. The partially open flower shows the early 
condition of the stamens, the stigmas not having yet pushed through 
the staminal tube. Fig. 1 is a vertical, and 2 a transverse, section 
through the ovary ; 3 is the bulbous root. 
CROCUSES 
Natural Order IRIpDE&. Genus Crocus 
Crocus (the ancient Latin and Greek name for Saffron). A genus of 
about seventy species of perennial herbs with rootstalks in the form of 
a corm; no stem; leaves radical, long, slender, grass-like, channeled 
- above, white beneath, the edges turned back, and the lower portion of 
the leaf-bundle surrounded by sheaths of thin, translucent, whitish 
tissue. Flowers solitary or in bundles, enclosed in a spathe; perianth 
large, tube very long; the six segments equal in form and almost in 
size, but the inner ones are invariably somewhat shorter than the outer ; 
concave, narrow-oblong. The stamens are attached to the bases of the 
outer segments, the filaments free. The ovary is hidden between the 
bases of the leaves, underground, and is egg-shaped; the style thread- 
like, branching into the three stigmas, which are again variously divided 
according to species. Capsule spindle-shaped, seeds roundish. The 
species are natives of Europe, North Africa, and North and West 
Asia. 
aren Three species of Crocus have been cultivated in 
gardens for so many centuries that we have lost all 
record of their introduction. These are C. nudiflorus, C. sativus, and 
C. vernus—all occurring naturally in Europe, and now found naturali 
locally in England. C. susianus, the very early and brilliant Cloth of 
Gold Crocus, was introduced from the Crimea in 1605. C. awreus, the — 
IV.—I5 
