CRO'CUS SPECIO'SUS. 
SHOWY AUTUMN CROCUS. 
Class. Order. 
TRIANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
IRIDACE^. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration 
Introduced 
S. Europe. 
5 inches. 
Sep. & Oct. 
Perennial. 
in 1830? 
No. 900. 
Although we now use very many of the names 
of plants which were common amongst the Greeks, 
two or three thousand years ago, still it is not pre- 
sumed, except in very few instances, that they are 
attached to the same subjects as originally. The 
ancient descriptions are so vague that they rarely 
enable us to distinguish the plants to which they 
were intended to apply; it is believed, however, that 
Crocus was used by the ancients as the name of 
some species of the genus to which it is applied at 
the present day. 
Were it not for so great an authority as the Hon. 
and Rev. W. Herbert, we should not hesitate to 
pronounce this plant identical with the English 
species nudiflorus, but Mr. Herbert has doubtless, 
seen them cultivated together, and has legitimate 
reasons for objecting to the two species being con- 
sidered as mere varieties, the one of the other. 
In our plate of this interesting Crocus will be 
seen both flowers and foliage ; but it must be 
remembered that in the garden they will not be 
met with together. The drawing of the flower was 
made in the first week of October, that of the 
