Authors:
Bulb to 3cm across, with small bulbils, and often elongated stolons. Stem 4-20cm tall, papillose at ground level. Leaves four to six alternate, linear, usually canaliculate. Flowers narrowly bell-shaped, with little scent. Tepals 1.2-2.5cm long, usually greyish outside, greenish or yellowish inside, with a small nectary at the base. Style papillose, club-shaped, undivided. Capsule not winged. Eastern Turkey, from Malatya eastwards to Agri, and in northern Iran and Iraq, growing in cornfields, screes, and steppe at 1100-2500m. F.a. subsp. melananthera differs in having slenderer stems, very narrow petals less than 5mm wide, striped green and blackish inside, and black anthers. At lower altitudes, to 700m, in southern Turkey, between the Taurus mountains and the sea, growing in sandy soil. The name F. assyriaca was applied in error to a distinct species common in cultivation, which is now F. uva-vulpis (q.v.).
