Purple Death. Colchicum cilicicum, Tenore Autumn Crocus, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dying now it's Winter and purple on the grey rock...
No, it's not a 'real' crocus but rather a plant of the relatively large Colchicum family. Named after the area of Colchis of eastern Turkey, home of the sorceress Medea, a great poisoner of Classical Antiquity. Colchicums like this one are highly poisonous for human consumption. Cilicicum is for Cilicia, south-eastern Anatolia.
In the English name 'Tenore' stands for Michele Tenore (1780-1861), botanist of Naples, Italy who described our plant in 1826, when he used the latinised name of another South-Italian botanist, Antonio de Bivona-Bernardi (1774-1837): bivonae, for this flower's specific. In common parlance it's sometimes called 'Naked Lady' for the absence of foliage such as that of true crocuses.
Purple Death. Colchicum cilicicum, Tenore Autumn Crocus, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dying now it's Winter and purple on the grey rock...
No, it's not a 'real' crocus but rather a plant of the relatively large Colchicum family. Named after the area of Colchis of eastern Turkey, home of the sorceress Medea, a great poisoner of Classical Antiquity. Colchicums like this one are highly poisonous for human consumption. Cilicicum is for Cilicia, south-eastern Anatolia.
In the English name 'Tenore' stands for Michele Tenore (1780-1861), botanist of Naples, Italy who described our plant in 1826, when he used the latinised name of another South-Italian botanist, Antonio de Bivona-Bernardi (1774-1837): bivonae, for this flower's specific. In common parlance it's sometimes called 'Naked Lady' for the absence of foliage such as that of true crocuses.