148 
SEEDLINGS OF CROCUS 
CHRYSANTHUS. 
Now that so many species of Crocus 
are grown in our gardens, it is much to 
be wished that more people who grow 
them would raise seedHngs. The variety 
and vigour shown by seedlings are most 
remarkable and would well repay the 
small trouble of gathering and sowing 
the seed, and the necessary wait of three 
years for flowering. Crocus chrysanthus 
alone has produced during the last few 
years some of the most beautiful forms 
I know. One of these seedling forms 
was shown at the first February meeting 
of the Royal Horticultural Society, and 
was illustrated in The Gar c/e/i {or M^rch 
18. It is at first sight hard to believe 
that a white Crocus,richly suffused with 
purple on the outside of the outer seg- 
ments, can have anything to do with 
chrysa7ithus. Its parentage however is 
well known. It was raised in Mr. van 
Tubergen's nurseries at Haarlem from 
seed of C. chjysajithus pallidiis (see 
Flora of April 1904, fig. 4), and I hear 
that this season seedlings from the purple 
and white form have given the typical 
var. pallidus. One of the features of 
these forms is the increase in size and 
vigour they show over the wild forms. 
The question arises what should we call 
this purple and white form ? I hope to 
show that it is a form of ch7ysa72thits var. 
cosruksce77s of Maw, a plant that has been 
much misunderstood in gardens. 
Maw's diagnosis of it in his mono- 
graph is " segmenta albaextuspurpureo 
et coerulescenti lilacino ornata," and on 
Plate LXII. fig. I, e. and f. represent 
this variety, both show the outer surface 
of an outer segment ; one white, broadly 
suffused up the centre with purple, and 
feathering slightly — the other, with the 
exception of the yellow of the throat, 
entirely suffused with lilac. So I think 
we may conclude thatMaw intended this 
varietal name to apply to a form white 
internally and with the three outer seg- 
ments externally more or less suffused 
with purple shades. In its less suffused 
forms it is not uncommon in collections 
as C. ch?-ysa77thtis albidus — which how- 
ever Maw describes as " segmenta extus 
alba, basi flavida," and figures as d. on 
the same plate. I have seen his specimen 
in the herbarium at the British Museum, 
and there is no trace of lilac on it. 
Clearly then, all forms with lilac mark- 
ings, however slight, should belong to 
var. coeritlesce7is. 
In 1 90 1 I showed before the Scien- 
tific Committee of the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society some seedlings flower- 
ing for the first time. Two of these, 
except for size, may be considered 
identical with the Haarlem seedlings, 
and one of them has, nowthat it is strong, 
equalled them in this respect. Since 
then I have raised many more, which, 
though showing a great degree of varia- 
I tion, are all closely related. These I 
believe to come from two sources, the 
plant above mentioned as grown in gar- 
dens as var. albidus^ and a small feathered 
form, not at all common, and grown as 
C. biflorusv2iX. 77ubige7tus^ but in that the 
outer segments are externally yellower 
than in other forms of biflorus^ and the 
anthers have the distinc tly black-spotted 
barbs so characteristic of the chrysa7ithus 
forms, and also some of the seedl 
m 
