| 1 | Colchicum montanum Hispanicum. The little Spanish Medowe Saffron. |
| 2 | Colchicum montanum minus versicolore flore. The small party coloured Medowe Saffron. |
| 3 | Colchicum versicolor. The party coloured Medowe Saffron. |
| 4 | Colchicum variegatum alterum. Another party coloured Medowe Saffron. |
| 5 | Colchicum atropurpureum. The darke purple Medowe Saffron. |
| 6 | Colchicum atropurpureum variegatum. The variable darke purple Medowe Saffron. |
| 7 | Colchicum vernum. Medowe Saffron of the spring. |
| 8 | Colchicum flore pleno. Double Medowe Saffron. |
The Place.
All these Medowe Saffrons, or the most part of them, haue their places expressed in their titles; for some grow in the fields and medowes of the champion grounds, others on the mountaines and hilly grounds. The English kindes grow in the West parts, as about Bathe, Bristow, Warmister, and other places also. The double kindes are thought to come out of Germany.
The Time.
Their times likewise are declared in their seuerall descriptions: those that are earliest in Autumne, flower in August and September, the later in October, and the latest in the end of October, and in November. The other are said to bee of the Spring, in regard they come after the deepe of Winter (which is most vsually in December and Ianuary) is past.
The Names.
The generall name to all these plants is Colchicum, whereunto some haue added Ephemerum, because it killeth within one dayes space; and some Strangulatorium. Some haue called them also Bulbus Agrestis, and Filius ante Patrem, The Sonne before the Father, because (as they thinke) it giueth seede before the flower: but that is without due consideration; for the root of this (as of most other bulbous plants) after the stalke of leaues and seede are dry, and past, may be transplanted, and then it beginneth to spring and giue flowers before leaues, (and therein onely it is differing from other plants) but the leaues and seede follow successiuely after the flowers, before it may be remoued againe; so that here is not seede before flowers, but contrarily flowers vpon the first planting or springing, and seede after, as in all other plants, though in a diuers manner.
The Colchicum Hermodactilum may seeme very likely to bee the Colchicum Orientale of Matthiolus, or the Colchicum Alexandrinum of Lobelius: And some thinke it to be the true Hermodactilus, and so call it, but it is not so. We doe generally call them all in English Medowe Saffrons, or Colchicum, according to the Latine, giuing to euery one his other adiunct to know it by.
The Vertues.
None of these are vsed for any Physicall respect, being generally held to be deadly, or dangerous at the least. Only the true Hermodactile (if it be of this tribe, and not this which is here expressed) is of great vse, for paines in the ioynts, and of the hippes, as the Sciatica, and the like, to be taken inwardly. Costæus in his Booke of the nature of plants, saith, that the rootes of our common kindes are very bitter in the Spring of the yeare, and sweet in Autumne, which Camerarius contradicteth, saying, that he found them bitter in Autumne, which were (as he saith) giuen by some imposters to diuers, as an antidote against the Plague.