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Autumn crocus: toxicity, first aid and care

Autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale): severe for cats, severe for dogs, severe for small children. The toxic principle, the signs, what to do, and how to grow it.

Cats: SevereDogs: SevereChildren: SevereEmergency risk

Also sold as: Meadow saffron, naked ladies.

This is a reference table, not a diagnosis and not veterinary or medical advice. It cannot tell you how much of a plant matters for a particular child or a particular animal — that depends on body weight, on the part eaten and on how long ago. If a person or an animal has eaten part of a plant, phone the poison information centre or a clinician; do not wait for symptoms, and do not make anyone vomit unless you are told to.

What is in it

Toxic principle: Colchicine — Alkaloids and other systemic poisons.

Colchicine stops cells dividing, so it damages every fast-renewing tissue in the body at once: the gut lining, the bone marrow, the hair follicles. It is a real medicine at a carefully measured dose and a multi-organ poison a little above it. The corm and the seed are the richest parts, and the margin between the two situations is narrow.

What it looks like when it goes wrong

Deceptively delayed. Burning in the mouth and throat, then two to twelve hours of nothing much, then violent vomiting and diarrhoea, dehydration, and over the following days bone-marrow failure, liver and kidney injury and breathing difficulty.

What to do

Any suspected ingestion is an emergency and the absence of symptoms in the first hours means nothing at all — that quiet gap is a feature of the poison, not reassurance. Phone the poison centre or go to hospital; for an animal, a veterinary clinic. There is no antidote and care is supportive.

Anywhere in the European Union, 112 reaches emergency services and can put you through. Lithuania's poison information bureau (Apsinuodijimų kontrolės ir informacijos biuras) publishes its own round-the-clock line; if you do not have it to hand, use 112. For an animal, your own veterinary clinic or its out-of-hours service is the first call — human poison centres do not advise on animals in every country.

How to grow it

Leafless pink-lilac goblets push out of bare ground in late summer and autumn, which is the whole charm of the plant; the broad glossy leaves come up the following spring and then die away untidily. Plant the corms in July and leave them undisturbed. If you keep it, know where it is and label it.

What it gets confused with

The dangerous confusions are with food. In spring the leaves come up beside wild garlic and closely resemble it, and this substitution has caused fatal poisonings across northern and central Europe. The autumn flower is also mistaken for saffron crocus — real saffron is Crocus sativus, an unrelated plant. Never forage a leaf on shape alone; wild garlic smells of garlic when crushed and colchicum does not.

A plant that is not on the toxic lists

If you are deciding what to keep in a home with a cat, a dog or a small child, this one fills a similar role and is not flagged by the veterinary services.

Others that work the same way

Alkaloids and other systemic poisons — these behave alike, and what you would do about them is alike too.

Source: Royal Horticultural Society — potentially harmful garden plants · checked 2026-09-06

Care guidance is standard horticultural practice for a cool-temperate northern climate. Poison-centre numbers are listed on the hub page and are worth confirming against your own country's health service.

Frequently asked questions

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