COLCHICUM AUTUMNALE. COMMON MEADOW SAFFRON. 
Class YI. HEXANDRIA.— Order III. TRIGYNIA. 
Natural Order, IRIDE/E. THE CORN FLAG TRIBE. 
Meadow-saffron, like the colts-foot, produces its leaves one season, and flowers at another ; but differs 
in this respect, that the leaves, and fruit, appear early in the spring, and the flowers in the autumn. Hence 
it has been considered the harbinger of winter, and Linnaeus, in his Philosophia Botanica, observes, “ Colchi - 
cum autumni et gelu nuncia est .” It is an indigenous perennial plant, found in several counties, chiefly in 
the west and north of England, where it grows in tolerable abundance, in moist rich meadows. It occurs, 
among other places, at Filkins and Bradwell, Oxfordshire; in Weston Park, Staffordshire; at Little Ston- 
ham and Bury, Suffolk; near Devizes, Wiltshire; about Derby and Northampton; and at the foot of the 
Malvern hills, in Worcestershire. Miller observed it, many years ago, in great plenty, in the meadows near 
Castle-Bromwick, in Warwickshire, in the beginning of September, and says, that the common people 
called the flowers Naked Ladies, because they come without the leaves. In Scotland it appears to be very 
rare ; but Lightfoot, in his “ Flora Scotica,” mentions it as growing at Alloa. 
The stem, which is called a solid bulb, consists of a fleshy succulent cormus, abounding in a milky 
juice, and covered with a brown membranous coat. This bulb, which is nearly as large as that of a tulip, 
and furnished at the base Avith numerous small fibrous roots, perishes after the ripening of the seeds, having 
first thrown out a lateral offset, that produces the flowers of the ensuing season. From this last arises, in 
autumn, along a furrow in the side of the old bulb, a long naked tube, which at the upper part expands into 
the flower. The leaves spring directly from the bulb in spring, along with the capsules. They are dark 
green, smooth, obtuse, spear-shaped, above a foot long, and pointed ; growing erect. On the decay of the 
leaves, the flower makes its appearance, towards the latter end of September. It is large, of a pale purple 
or lilac colour, divided into six deep, elliptic-oblong, concave, upright segments, and rising immediately 
from the bulb, by a tube five or six inches long, two-thirds of which are sunk in the ground. The perianth 
is single, and the flowers are therefore often described as having no calyx. The filaments are awl-shaped, 
inserted into the tube of the corollaceous perianth, and support erect, oblong, versatile, yellow, extrorse 
anthers. The germen is roundish, and imbedded in the bulb. The styles are thread-shaped, the length of 
the stamens, and terminated by linear, recurved, and doAvny stigmas. The fruit is a capsule, with three 
lobes, closely connected ; its dehiscence is loculicidal, and it contains numerous whitish, smooth, globular 
seeds, which are perfected in the month of June, when the capsule rises above ground on a short peduncle, 
accompanied by the leaves. The seeds are covered by membranous testae, and inclose a dense, fleshy albu- 
men. A considerable variety obtains in this species, both with respect to the form and colour of the flower. 
In one variety the flowers accompany the leaves in spring. 
For the introduction of Colchicum into modern practice, we are principally, if not wholly indebted to 
Mr. Want.’ The first hint he obtained on this subject, was derived from the writings of Alexander of 
Tralles, a Greek physician of the sixth century, whose book on gout is one of the most valuable clinical 
records of antiquity ; and who, in his chapter on anodynes remarks, that some persons take a medicine 
called Hermodactylon, which produces an evacuation of watery matter from the bowels, attended with such 
relief that patients are immediately able to walk. But, says he, it has this bad property, that it disposes 
those who take it to be more frequently attacked with the disease. He speaks, also, of its producing 
nausea and loathing of food ; and proceeds to describe the manner of counteracting its bad properties. The 
effects here spoken of are so similar to those resulting from the exhibition of the Eau Medicinale, that 
Mr. Want was led to hope that it might be the same medicine, or, at least, that it possessed powers of the 
same kind ; and on procuring a specimen of this plant from Constantinople, it was found to be the Colchi- 
cum. The Hermodactyl was strongly recommended by Paulus /Egineta as a specific for the gout, also by 
Pepagoneus, who wrote a treatise on that disease at the request of the Emperor Michael Palaeologus, in the 
13th century; and such was its reputation, that it obtained the name of Anima Articxdorum, “the soul of 
joints/’ Two of the most celebrated gout-specifics, viz. Turner’s Gout-powder, and the Vienna Decoction, 
the latter of which is so strongly recommended by Behrens in the Ephemerides Naturae Curiosce, are 
formed principally of Colchicum ; and it is notorious to every practitioner acquainted with the history of 
his profession, that this root has, at different epochs, obtained a celebrity in the treatment of gout, though 
