Colchicum autumnale (Autumn Crocus)

Plate 1 figs. a–g

Colchicum autumnale, photographed by Michael Grundner — fig. a Michael Grundner, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-27 / obs. 201162637

Colchicum autumnale, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning — fig. b Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199044303

Colchicum autumnale, photographed by Christian Berg — fig. c Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194280636

Colchicum autumnale, photographed by Todd Patterson — fig. d Todd Patterson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193672382

Colchicum autumnale, photographed by Björn Sothmann — fig. e Björn Sothmann, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 193925105

Colchicum autumnale, photographed by David Sandler — fig. f David Sandler, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193118869

Colchicum autumnale, photographed by Gabriel Mayrhofer — fig. g Gabriel Mayrhofer, CC0 1.0 / obs. 191731914

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 1,690 observations

328

989

341

Flowering observations of Colchicum autumnale by month
Month	Observations
Jan	1
Feb	3
Mar	2
Apr	1
May	2
Jun	0
Jul	1
Aug	328
Sep	989
Oct	341
Nov	17
Dec	5

Peak flowering in Sep, from 1,690 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 39 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

Bulbocodium antumnale (L.) Lapeyr.
Bulbocodium autumnale Lapeyr.
Colchicum autumnale f. bulgaricum (Velen.) Domin
Colchicum autumnale f. macropetala Gajic
Colchicum autumnale f. milosi Gajic
Colchicum autumnale f. pannonicum (Griseb. & Schenk) Domin
Colchicum autumnale f. radei Gajic
Colchicum autumnale f. transsilvanicum (Schur) Domin
Colchicum autumnale prol. vernale (Hoffm.) Rouy
Colchicum autumnale subsp. pannonicum (Griseb. & Schenk) Nyman
Colchicum autumnale subsp. vernum (Reichard) Nyman
Colchicum autumnale var. album Gray
Colchicum autumnale var. bulgaricum (Vel.) Stoj. & Stef.
Colchicum autumnale var. elatius Simonk.
Colchicum autumnale var. major Tubergen
Colchicum autumnale var. pannonicum (Griseb. & Schenk) Baker
Colchicum autumnale var. pictum Lej. & Courtois
Colchicum autumnale var. serotinum Gray
Colchicum autumnale var. speciosissimum Bubela
Colchicum autumnale var. transsilvanicum (Schur) Nyman
Colchicum autumnale var. vernale (Hoffm.) Nyman
Colchicum autumnale var. vernum Reichard
Colchicum autumnale var. viridiflorum Opiz
Colchicum borisii Stef.

and 15 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.