424 Account and Description of Spring Crocuses, $c. 



containing altogether twenty three distinct sorts with sub- 

 varieties to some of the sorts. Several of these are referable 

 without difficulty to our cultivated plants, some are doubtless 

 native plants, which though thus early known have not been 

 distinguished again till lately, others are lost, and some can- 

 not be well made out, or at least not sufficiently so to enable 

 them to be determined. 



From the materials thus supplied by Caspar Bauhin, with 

 the aid of the works of John Bauhin, and the collection of 

 Plants in the Royal Garden at Paris, Tournefort* in 1719, 

 formed his List of the Genus Crocus and enumerated thirty- 

 four kinds. These Lists of Caspar Bauhin and Tournefort, 

 with those of Parkinson and Miller before noticed, with 

 references to the authorities quoted by them, will supply the 

 whole information that can be had of the kinds of Crocuses 

 known or cultivated in the earlier times. 



With the assistance of Tournefort's work, Weston^ in 

 1771, compiled a list of the Genus Crocus, forty of which were 

 Spring flowering ones ; several of these were however assu- 

 redly not in existence at the period of the publication, and 

 the work cannot be considered as of much authority ; it is 

 however proper to mention it when all the writers on the 

 subject are enumerated. 



Of the species I propose to notice, C. argenteus and C. lac- 

 teus are new, and C. pusillus and C. vernus are the only natural 

 species. The latter, though only noted by Linnaeus as a 

 variety must be considered as founded by him. C. pusillus 

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



* See Institutiones Rei Herbariae, Vol. 1. page 350, Sec. 

 f Universal Botanist, Vol. 2. page 237. 



