meadow-saffron: A genus of the trigynia order, belonging to the hexandria clasps of plants; and in the natural method ranking under the ninth order, Spathaceae. The corolla is sepals, with its tube radicated, or having its root in the ground; there are three capsules, connected and inflated. There are three species, all of them bulbous-rooted, low, perennials, possessing the singular property of their leaves appearing at one time, and their flowers at another; the former rising long and narrow from the root in the spring, and decaying in June; the flowers, which are monopetalous, long, tubular, erect, and six-parted, rise naked from the root in autumn, not more than four or five inches high. Their colours afford a beautiful variety; being purple, variegated purple, white, red, rose-coloured, yellow, &c., with single and double flowers. They are all hardy plants, so much that they will flower though the roots happen to lie out of the ground; but by this they are much weakened. They are propagated by offsets from the roots, of which they are very prolific. These are to be taken up and divided at the decay of the leaf in summer, planting the whole again before the middle of August. They are to be placed at nine inches distance from one another, and three inches deep in the ground.

The root of this plant is poisonous. When young and full of sap, its taste is very acrid; but when old, mealy and faint. Two drachms of it killed a large dog in 13 hours, operating violently by stool, vomit, and urine. One grain of it swallowed by a healthy man, produced heats in the stomach, and soon after flushing heats in different parts of the body, with frequent shiverings, followed by colicky pains; after which an itching in the loins and urinary passages was perceived; then came on a continual inclination to make water, a tenesmus, pain in the head, quick pulse, thirst, and other disagreeable symptoms. Notwithstanding these effects, however, an infusion of the roots in vinegar, formed into a syrup with honey or sugar, proves a safe and powerful pectoral and diuretic, and is often of service in dropsies, &c. The virtues of colchicum seem much to resemble those of squills. The hermodactyl of the shops is said to be the root of the variegatum, a species of this genus.