Couldn’t resist sharing this picture of a potted colchicum, part of East Ruston’s extensive collection, even though I just learned that they are highly toxic plants. Even worse, their leaves can be confused with wild garlic, which tends to grow in the same areas. So, unlike many poisonous plants which have the potential to harm, but are never ingested, colchicums have been documented to kill.
You can see that there is a label in the pot, but I neglected to take a shot of it, so I can’t name this fine variety. From a purely aesthetic point of view, I like the subtle hint of checkering on the flower petals that reminds me of fritillaria meleagris.
The purplish colour seems to have become a warning – beware of eating me! – although that’s just my imagination kicking into overdrive. I’m used to that. I’m the sort who only has to think I’m being eaten alive by mosquitoes to feel itchy.
If you missed my previous post on colchicums, you can read it here.
Susan Rushton 
That is just like in the pictures in the catalogues. I have never grown them though.
I’ve not grown them either, just admired them in other people’s gardens.
What a beauty! I’d love some of these in my garden to make an autumn splash of colour. Now I need to look up when to plant them!
They do make quite a splash. It looks like each bulb produces three or four large flowers.
Discovered that the slugs and snails like them too, so maybe not for my garden after all 😦
Perhaps that’s where all the leaves have gone 🙂
Haha…
What a stunning photo!
I would usually feel sorry that the plant tags were showing but for some reason in this shot, I don’t mind them.
It is always intriguing to connect poison with such beauty. There is a very informative section of the Geffrye Museum Gardens on the subject.
I’ll check it out. I remember being alarmed to read about how toxic foxgloves could be – even the seeds and pollen, if I remember – as I had a big vase of them on my mantlepiece at the time.
I like the chequering too. Didn’t know they were highly toxic either.
It’s so subtle, I half felt I was imagining it too!
I don’t think I’d be tempted to grow any such mean things, but they are fascinating. That “checkering” on the petals has sort of a quilted look. Lovely texture! I was of course immediately pulled into the link to Rappacini, also fascinating. I must revisit that. Thank you!
I often wish we could select the related posts that appear, but in this case the artificial intelligence critter did very well.
I didn’t realize those were so random; I’d assumed they were generated from the host blog. I agree that AI did quite well on this one!
They seem to use the tags and categories to work out which to chose.
Wow! They’re so pretty! I’d have never guessed they were that poisonous. I guess they are a look but don’t touch type.
One site I found said the effect was similar to cholera.
Holy cow!
I remember last year, they had a whole bed of colchicums at East Ruston. I wonder what they do with it in spring.
They were all potted up when we saw them.