“Child of the
pensive autumn woods!
So lovely,
though thou dwell obscure and lone …
Where shall I
ever find
So rare a
grace? In what shy solitudes? …”
~ “The Autumn Crocus”
~ Robert Laurence Binyon
~ English poet, dramatist & art scholar
~ 1869 ~ 1943
Afternoon
sunlight softly dances around an Autumn Crocus that emerges as a beacon of hope amidst
the fading colors of fall on a beautiful early September day on the cusp of
autumn at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Colchicum
autumnale, commonly known as autumn crocus, meadow saffron, naked boys or naked
ladies, is a toxic autumn-blooming flowering plant that resembles the true
crocuses, but is a member of the plant family Colchicaceae, unlike the true
crocuses, which belong to the Iris family. It is called “naked boys/ladies”
because the flowers emerge from the ground long before the leaves appear.
Despite the vernacular name of “meadow saffron,” this plant is not the source
of saffron, which is obtained from the saffron crocus, Crocus savitus ~ and
that plant, too, is sometimes called “autumn crocus.”
