470 Account and Description of Spring Crocuses, fyc. 



sufficiently acquainted with the distinctions which separate 

 it from other wild species. The only natural plant which 

 I shall notice is that which grows in the large extended 

 meadow on the side of the River Trent, south of the town 

 of Nottingham, where it was first described to exist by 

 Deering. 



I originally received roots of this wild plant from Mr. 

 George Anderson, who took them up on the spot ; subse- 

 quently I have examined blossoms of bulbs sent up in 1824 

 to the garden of the Society, at my request, by Mr. John 

 Pearson, of Chilwell, near Nottingham. Last year a fresh 

 supply of bulbs, and much additional information on the sub- 

 ject were supplied by Mr. Haythorn, Gardener to the Lord 

 Middleton, at Wollaton Hall, near Nottingham. From these 

 different collections which have flowered in the garden of 

 the Society, the following descriptions of these wild plants 

 are formed. 



The blossoms are produced early before those of most of 

 the garden varieties of the species. The leaves are not nu- 

 merous at the time of flowering, they are then short, rigid, 

 nearly upright, and do not rise above the tube of the flower ; 

 they after become spreading, but are of moderate length ; 

 they are broad, and exhibit the white lines in their middle con- 

 spicuously. The leaf sheaths are white. The flowers are of 

 good size. The germen is cream-coloured, the tube white, 

 slightly stained at top with lilac ; the petals are narrow, lan- 

 ceolate, and long; the mouth of the tube is hairy, the 

 ground of the petals at their bases is whitish. The flowers 

 of some are without any dark marks or spots at the base of 

 the outer part of the petals, the whole being a uniform pale 



