444 Account and Description of Spring Crocuses, ifc. 



covered with a shining silky skin, the inner coat being finely 

 netted. I have never observed ripe seeds produced by this 

 kind. 



4. Crocus lagen^eflorus. Flask-shaped Crocus. 

 Has been usually considered as identical with the Crocus 

 aureus* of the Flora Graeca, but on comparison with the speci- 

 men of that species in the Banksian Herbarium, the differences 

 appear so striking that I cannot think them the same, and 

 have consequently adopted the name given by Mr. Salisbury 

 in the Paradisus Londinensis, to the one now under notice. 

 The Wild Grecian Crocus aureus has a smallerflower, with 

 petals more pointed, neither concave nor obtuse, and at the 

 time of blossoming the leaves are very much longer than the 

 flower, which is not the case with this Garden plant. In the 

 Botanical Magazine, folio 1111, this was considered and de- 

 scribed by Mr. Bellenden Ker as specifically the same with 

 C. luteus, the Common Yellow Crocus. C. .lagenaeflorus 

 (See Plate lh Fig. 2 J comes into blossom early, at the 

 same time with some of the most forward varieties of C. ver- 

 sicolor, soon after C. Susianus, and before any other of the 

 yellow kind. The leaf sheaths are dingy-brown and large. 

 The leaves are few, rigid and upright, broad, scarcely appear- 

 ing when the blossoms expand, after the flowering they grow 

 long and they remain green late. The flowers are numerous, 

 small and turbinate. The germen is whitish. The tube long 

 and white, but pale yellow at top. The petals deep yellow, 

 short, obtuse, very concave, and much imbricatecj, expanding 



• Prodromus Florae Grsecae, page 24, No. 85. Flora Graeca, vol. i. page 25, 

 Plate 35. 



