''Romulea bulbocodium'' is one of the best-known species from the genus ''

Romulea ''Romulea'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, first described as a genus in 1772. It is found in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and Africa.Iridaceae Iridaceae () is a family of plants in order Asparagales, taking its name from the Iris (plant), irises. It has a nearly global distribution, with 69 accepted genera with a total of about 2500 species. It includes a number of economically importan ...

, is native to the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

region (southern

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, northern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

) and

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

.Altervista Flora Italiana, Zafferanetto comune, ''Romulea bulbocodium'' (L.) Sebast. & Mauri
includes photos plus European distribution map It has many varieties and is occasionally used as ornamental plant. The species has a small rootstock - a corm which can be found in sandy and rocky soils. It produces long and slender leaves. The plant looks much like the popular ''

Crocus ''Crocus'' (; plural: crocuses or croci) is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae (iris family) comprising about 100 species of perennial plant, perennials growing from corms. They are low growing plants, whose flower stem ...

''. The blooms are small and with six

tepals A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of ve ...

. Most varieties have purple or violet blooms, but white or yellow also occur. The ovary is 3-locular and the seeds are brown, pellet-like, circular grains.

References

bulbocodium Plants described in 1818 Flora of Sudan Garden plants Flora of Malta Flora of Portugal Flora of Spain {{Iridaceae-stub