





200 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
orders. In many cases, however, it has produced 
injurious effects ; so that, as a medicine, it ought 
not to be administered but by the most cautious 
practitioners ; for the Colchicum is undoubtedly 
a poisonous root, and its deleterious effects are 
to be dreaded until the precise dose is accu- 
rately ascertained. 
The poisonous quality of this plant seems to 
be known as it were by instinct to all kinds of 
cattle. They all shun it, and it is no uncom- 
mon thing to see it standing alone in pastures, 
where every other kind of herbage has been 
eaten down, without a leaf of this plant being 
touched. 
The Meadow Saffron cannot but interest the 
botanist on account of the singular phenomena 
which it exhibits. Its corolla, six-cleft, of a 
violet colour, has neither leaves nor stem: a 
long tube, white as ivory, which is but a pro- 
longation of the flower, is its sole support. At 
the bottom of this tube Nature has placed the 
seed, which is not destined to ripen before the 
following spring. The seed-vessel which en- 
closes it is buried in the turf during the win- 
ter; but, on the return of spring, it rises from 
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