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A HISTORY OF THE SPECIES OF CROCUS. 



of the genus Crocus, is distinguishable in the dry roots by the 

 hard reticulation of their foliaceous coats, and the persistent star 

 which is the remnant of the inner vaginaceous coat. Their 

 leaves are usually smooth, very narrow, and the channels have 

 no conspicuous nerves. The common cloth of gold has the sepals 

 generally disposed to become revolute in the sunshine, but there 

 is a variety in the gardens less irritable, in which they only be- 

 come spreading. I can find no structural difference of any 

 importance between this and variegatus, albicans, or the plain 

 yellow reticulate Crocus of Ancyra ; but, as far as I know, the 

 yellow kinds are never found in company with the others. The 

 cloth of gold, with the sepals streaked with brown in some spe- 

 cimens, and suffused in others, is found on barren slopes in 

 Tauria. Cultivated, it seems to dislike sand very much, and I could 

 never make the bulbs thrive in a pot of sand. I am not aware of 

 any intermediate plant having been found between the yellow, 

 the lilac, and the white local varieties. The lilac is found in 

 Lipizza forest and on Monte Spaccato near Trieste, and a variety 

 with white flowers is not uncommon amongst them, but they are 

 all strongly streaked on the outside of the sepals. The lilac 

 variety grows also in the eastern parts of Tauria. The variety 

 albicans is found near Odessa, in 8. Podolia, in TVallachia, near 

 Bucharest, and in the Banat of Hungary. It is slenderer than 

 the white casual variety of Lipizza, and a lilac variety is not 

 found mixed therewith similar to the Tergestine plant, though it 

 sports as to the colour of the streaks, and has rarely a little suf- 

 fusion of lilac. The seeds of the Tergestine plant differ mate- 

 rially from those of the cloth of gold. I have tried to obtain a 

 cross between them, and believe that I have succeeded ; but the 

 seedlings have not yet flowered, and we know not how the lilac 

 and yellow will blend if they can be crossed. The lilac will pro- 

 bably be discarded, and the flower be either white or pale yellow. 

 C. variegatus grows in a crumbling reddish earth on the stony 

 carso upon the flat top of Monte Spaccato, and in richer blacker 

 earth, because highly manured for the emperor's stud, in Lipizza 

 forest. Albicans, from Bucharest, in a crumbling blackish 

 earth on the Steppes, which looks like soil that covers chalk ; 

 but neither it nor the soil from Lipizza effervesce in muriatic 

 acid. Albicans is Parkinson's cloth of silver crocus. I can find 

 no sufficient grounds for separating Prof. Visiani's C. Dalmati- 

 cus otherwise than as a variety closely akin to variegatus of Monte 

 Spaccato and Lipizza forest. In the living plant kindly given 

 to me by himself, I find no difference but the suffusion of pale 

 straw-colour, and the failure of the distinct purple stripes, which 

 are faint and dotted on the outside of the sepals. No cartilagi- 

 nous denticulation is discoverable on the leaves of my specimen, 



