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

This great blew Crocus riseth vp with diuers greene leaues, broader then any of the former (except the last) with a white line running downe the inside of euery leafe, as in the former, among which riseth vp, out of diuers great long white skinnes, diuers large flowers, but not fully so great as the former, consisting of six leaues, of a paler blew or Violet colour then in the former, hauing in the middle of the flowers a few pale threeds, tipt with yellow, and a longer pointell of a gold yellow colour, forked or diuided at the toppe, smelling sweeter then in the former, and abiding a great while longer, being in flower vsually euen with the stript yellow Crocus, or before the former purple, and yeelding more plenty of seede: the roote hereof is not very great, but a little darke on the outside, being round and flat withall, that one can hardly know which is the vpperside thereof.

Crocus Neapolitanus præcocior.

This kinde differeth very little from the former, either in roote, leafe, or flower, for the bignesse or colour, but that it seemeth to be a little bleaker or paler blew, because it flowreth a little earlier.

16. Crocus vernus purpureus striatus. The stript purple Crocus.

The leaues of this stript purple Saffron flower, are as large and broad as the last, or rather a little longer: the flowers also are as plentifull, and as large, of a fine delayed purple colour on the outside, with three broad strakes or lines downe the backe of the three outer leaues, and of a little deeper purple on the inside, as the other three leaues are also of a deeper purple colour, and are striped with the same deepe purple about the ground, or bottome of the leaues: this sometimes yeeldeth three square heads, containing in them brownish seede: the roote is like vnto the last, and flowreth much about the time of the former.

17. Crocus vernus purpureus versicolor. The siluer stript purple Crocus.

This stript Saffron flower, is in leaues and flowers somewhat like vnto the last stript purple, but a little smaller: the flowers are of a little deeper purple through the whole leaues, striped with white lines, both on the leaues, and towards the edges, which maketh a peculiar difference from all the rest: the roote of this is not so flat, though like it, and couered with a darke ash coloured skinne: it flowreth about the same time.

18. Crocus purpureus flammeus maior. The greater purple flame coloured Crocus.

The greene leaues of this Crocus or Saffron flower, are of a reasonable breadth and length, and of a pleasant fresh greenesse, with a faire broad white line downe the middle of them, but rising not out of the ground so early as the next described Crocus: the flowers are likewise of a meane bignesse, of a pale purple on the outside, somewhat whitish, especially the three outer leaues; but on the inside of a deeper purple, and striped with great stripes like flames, hauing some chiues in the middle, and a longer one also feathered a little at the toppe: the roote is white on the outside, somewhat flat and round, but not so flat as the Neapolitane Crocus before described.