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Crocus cartwrightianus
Wild saffron is a small cormous perennial bulb from Greece and Crete, growing to about 5 cm, with lilac or white flowers veined purple that appear with the leaves in autumn and winter. Grow it in free-draining, gritty soil with a dry summer rest, as it is a wild progenitor of the saffron crocus.
Crocus cartwrightianus is a species of flowering plant in the family Iridaceae. It is native to mainland Greece, Euboea, Crete, Skyros and some islands of the Cyclades. It is a cormous perennial growing to 5 cm (2 in). The flowers, in shades of lilac or white with purple veins and prominent red stigmas, appear with the leaves in autumn and winter.
There is evidence that this plant was cultivated in ancient Crete at least as early as the Middle Minoan Period, as exhibited by a mural, the "Saffron Gatherer", illustrating the gathering of crocuses. In the 19th century, wild Crocus cartwrightianus was harvested on Andros in the islands of the Cyclades, for medicinal purposes and the stigmas for making a pigment called Zafran.
This plant has received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
This species is commonly found growing on limestone soil areas of the Attica Peninsula of Greece.
Crocus alexandri · Cloth of gold · Crocus banaticus · Silvery Crocus · Snow Crocus · Corsican Crocus · Etruscan Crocus · Yellow crocus · Crocus goulimyi · Saffron Crocus · Sieber's crocus · Bieberstein's Crocus
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Crocus cartwrightianus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
