From the Garden: Autumnal Bulbs

We are now in the midst of the autumn bulb season. This often comes as a surprise to our visitors who associate such floral extravagances with the spring season.

There a several species of crocus, including the much coveted saffron crocus, that bloom in the fall and several other crocus-like bulbs that grace the autumn garden. Perhaps the most striking is the Meadow Saffron, known to botanists as Colchicum autumnale but lest its common name lead one astray, with potentially disastrous consequences, let me be perfectly clear that it can in no way be used as the true saffron crocus as a culinary additive.

The entire plant is deadly poisonous with symptoms that resemble arsenic poisoning and for which there is no known antidote.

Another crocus look-alike is known by the seemingly incongruent common name of Autumnal Narcissus for it looks nothing like the common Narcissus or daffodil and is instead usually mistaken for a crocus out of its normal season.

It was classed as an Amaryllis by Philip Miller in 1754 but is known today as Sternbergia lutea, for the celebrated German botanist, Count Kaspar Maria von Sternberg. This is an extremely easy bulb for the fall garden but, as Mr. Miller observes, “This Plant will grow in any Soil or Situation; but will thrive best in a fresh light dry Soil, and in an open Situation; ie, not under the Dripping of Trees, nor too near to Walls.”

Another striking fall bloomer is known vulgarly as the Naked Lady, Red Spider Lily or, in the southern colonies, as the Hurricane Lily for it blooms at the season that these great storms occur. Like the Colchicum the flowers emerge before the leaves giving it yet another common name of Surprise Lily.

To the botanist this exotic bulb from far away China is known as Lycoris radiata. This name was originally used to describe the similar Gurnsey Lily, Nerine sarniensis, from the Cape of South Africa which has created confusion amongst gardeners over the naming of these two bulbs to this very day.