XVI.— THE MEADOW SAFFRON. 
Colchicum autumnale Linne. 
T HE Family Liliace <e is one of the largest in the Vegetable Kingdom, 
comprising as it does some 2,500 species in 200 genera. Most of them 
are perennial herbaceous plants, though a few in warmer regions are arborescent. 
Many of them have bulbs or other fleshy forms of underground stem and some are 
succulent, the Family comprising many forms adapted to the wanner dry regions of the 
globe. Their flowers are usually perfect, polysymmetric, pentacyclic, and trimerous, 
consisting, that is, like those of the closely allied Juncacea , of five whorls of three 
leaves each, the most striking difference between them and those of the Junca.e<e 
being that their perianth consists of two petaloid whorls, whilst, as we have seen, 
that of the Rush Family is sepaloid. Honey is commonly secreted, and cross- 
pollination is usually effected by insect agency. The three carpels are usually 
united into a superior ovary with three chambers containing numerous ovules, in 
two rows in each chamber, springing from a central or axile placenta : the ovules are 
inverted or anatropous, and the ripe seeds contain fleshy or cartilaginous, but never 
mealy, albumen. 
Though including many plants of the greatest beauty, the ornaments of our 
gardens and greenhouses, the Family is not so rich in plants of economic value. 
The Asparagus and the Onion group are the chief food-plants in the Family : New 
Zealand Flax and Sisal Hemp are important fibres ; and Aloes, Squills, Sarsaparilla, 
and Colchicum are its chief medicinal products. 
The genus Colchicum comprises some thirty species, natives of Europe, 
Western Asia, or Northern Africa, our British species not occurring wild to the 
north of England and Denmark. The striking life-history in which the foliage and 
fruit appear at a season markedly distinct from that of flowering has naturally 
resulted in more notice being taken of the plant in the latter, that is in the autumn, 
season, as is evidenced by the specific name autumnale and by some of the less 
familiar popular names, such as Upstart or Son-before-the-father. 
The underground stem is a solid corm enclosed in a thick chestnut-brown 
sheath, the withered remains of the lowermost foliage-leaf of the previous year. 
During the spring this corm enlarges considerably as food is stored in it by the 
physiological activity of the large radical leaves that then unfold. A bunch of 
unbranched root-fibres springs from the base of the corm, and within the brown 
outer sheath there are three sheathing leaves the internodes between which do not 
elongate. Two of these remain as sheaths, but the third develops a blade and 
forms the first foliage-leaf to rise above ground. The internode next above it is 
the enlarging corm, whilst an axillary bud will form later to constitute the corm of 
the following year. Above the thickening internode rise two more foliage-leaves 
and a series of leaf-scales, in the axils of which the flower-buds will originate ; and 
