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Floral Illustrations of the Seasons / Consisting of the Most Beautiful, Hardy and Rare Herbaceous Plants, Cultivated in the Flower Garden cover

Floral Illustrations of the Seasons / Consisting of the Most Beautiful, Hardy and Rare Herbaceous Plants, Cultivated in the Flower Garden

Chapter 55: COLCHICUM Byzantinum.
By Margaret Roscoe
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About This Book

A series of hand-drawn and engraved botanical plates paired with succinct Latin classifications and practical cultivation notes, arranged to follow the seasons. Each entry describes plant form, varieties, propagation and soil or exposure preferences, and suggests garden uses for hardy herbaceous ornamentals. The preface frames the volume as an accessible guide intended to encourage aesthetic appreciation and botanical study, particularly among women, by combining accurate description with visual representation.

Plate 42. Colchicum Byzantinum.
Drawn from Nature by M.R. Engraved by R. Havell Junr.

COLCHICUM Byzantinum.

Broad-leaved Meadow Saffron.

Class and Order.—Hexandria Trigynia.

Syn. Colchicum byzantinum. Bot. Mag. pl. 1122.
 — Colchicum byzantinum. Sweet's Hort. Brit. p. 539.

Root bulbous, very large—scape radical, many flowered—corolla lilac pink—tube long, petals six, ob-ovate, spreading, strongly nerved at the back of each petal, tipped with a deeper color—stamens six, three longer than the others—filaments inserted in the base of the petals—anthers bright yellow—styles three, longer than the stamens—leaves radical, very large, broadly lanceolate, plicate, smooth, appearing after the flowers decay.

There cannot be a greater ornament to the flower garden in the autumnal months than the C. byzantinum, which is the finest species of the genus. We learn from the Bot. Mag. that, in 1598, bulbs of this plant were received by Clusius, at Vienna, from Constantinople, but it was not until 1629 that it was introduced into this country. It is a native of the Levant, and is perfectly hardy, not requiring any particular mode of treatment, except being planted in a light soil, mixed with bog. The flowers appear about September, but the leaves, which are the largest of any of the species, do not arrive at maturity until the following spring. The C. autumnale is famed for its medicinal properties. This is not a numerous genus; the most desirable species are

C. crociflorum.
— autumnale.
— var. white.
— variegatum.

Pl. 42.