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| At this time of year, the big floppy colchicums come
up, and then fall over at the first change in the weather.
Years ago we took delight on a stay in France, to tell the
(then) teenage son there were Naked Ladies in the field
just along the road – what a disappointment ! |
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But there are more delicate members of the genus, and
we saw several of these in the Peloponnese last
autumn. Here is the small and delicate Colchicum
cupanii, growing at the roadside in the north of
the Peloponnesian peninsula – about 5cm in
height.
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Common around the
Mediterranean basin, it is also known as Mediterranean
meadow saffron. |
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It is in
cultivation, and to get an idea of how small it is, look
at Ian Young's bulblog - Click
Here )
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It is named for Francesco Cupani, a seventeenth
century Italian botanist from Palermo, who worked on
plant classification in the days before Linnaeus.
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