Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, or, A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed vp / a kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, rootes & fruites for meate or sauce vsed with vs, and, an orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing trees and shrubbes fit for our land, together with the right orderinge, planting & preseruing of them and their vses & vertues

by John Parkinson

2. Colchicum Anglicum purpureum. The purple English Medowe Saffron.

There is no difference at all in this Medowe Saffron from the former, but only in the colour of the flowers, which as they were wholly white in the former, so in this they are of a delayed purple colour, with a small shew of veines therein.

3. Colchicum Pannonicum album. The white Hungary Medowe Saffron.

The greatest difference in this Colchicum from the former English white one, is, that it is larger both in roote, leafe, and flower, and besides, hath more store of flowers together, and continuing longer in beauty, without fading so soone as the former, and are also somewhat of a fairer white colour.

4. Colchicum Pannonicum purpureum. The purple Hungary Medowe Saffron.

This purple Medowe Saffron is somewhat like vnto the white of this kinde, but that it beareth not so plentifully as the white, nor doth the roote grow so great; but the flowers are in a manner as large as they, and of the like pale delayed purple colour, or somewhat deeper, as is in the purple English, with some veines or markes vpon the flowers, making some shew of a checker on the out side, but not so conspicuous, as in the true checkerd kindes. Wee haue a kinde hereof is party coloured with white streakes and edges, which abide constant, and hath been raised from the seede of the former.

5. Colchicum Byzantinum. Medowe Saffron of Constantinople.

This Medowe Saffron of Constantinople hath his leaues so broad and large, that hardly could any that neuer saw it before, iudge it to be a Colchicum; for they are much larger then any Lilly leaues, and of a darke greene colour: the flowers are correspondent to the leaues, larger and more in number then in any of the former purple kindes, of the same colour with the last purple kinde, but of a little deeper purple on the inside, with diuers markes running through the flowers, like vnto it, or vnto checkers, but yet somewhat more apparently: the roote is in the middle greater and rounder then the others, with a longer eminence, whereby it may easily bee knowne from all other sorts.

6. Colchicum Lusitanicum Fritillaricum. The checkerd Medowe Saffron of Portugall.

The flowers of this Medowe Saffron are larger and longer then the flowers of either the English or Hungarian, and almost as large as the last before mentioned, and of the same colour, but a little deeper, the spots and markes whereof are somewhat more easie to be seene euen a farre off, like vnto the flower of a Fritillaria, from whence it tooke his significatiue name: the leaues of this Medowe Saffron doe rise vp sooner then in any other of the Autumne kindes, for they are alwayes vp before Winter, and are foure or fiue in number, short rather then long, broad belowe, and pointed at the end, canaled or hollow, and standing round aboue the ground, one encompassing another at the bottome, like the great Spanish Starre Iacinth, called the Iacinth of Peru, but shorter, and of a pale or grayish greene colour, differing from the colour of all the other Medowe Saffrons: the roote is like the roote of the English or Hungarian without any difference, but that it groweth somewhat greater. It is one of the first Medowe Saffrons that flower in the Autumne.