COLCHICUM AUTUMNALE ‘giganteum’

FAMILY :: LILIACEAE
AUTUMN CROCUS: Hardy, easily grown, with pink to lavender flowers on naked stalks in the fall, with 1′ long leaves following through the winter. The plant dies to the ground in early summer. The flower “stalks” are actually elongated corolla tubes with the seed pods being formed underground, to rise the second year. All parts of the plant contain strong alkaloids, chiefly colchicine, which is used to relieve the pain and inflammation of rheumatism. Self medication is not advised because colchicine is also a strong mutatgen, and it is in this respect that it is most useful to plant-people who wish to create new polyploid varieties of almost any plant. Instructions for preparing and using colchicum as a mutagen included with each purchase of this plant.