The flowers, in shades of lilac or white with purple veins and prominent red stigmas, appear with the leaves in autumn and winter.

[6][clarification needed] The Latin specific epithet cartwrightianus refers to the 19th century British Consul to Constantinople, John Cartwright.

[7] C. cartwrightianus is the presumed wild progenitor of the domesticated triploid Crocus sativus – the saffron crocus[8][9][10] with a population in Attica, Greece suggested as the closest known modern population to the saffron ancestors.

[12] This species is commonly found growing on limestone soil areas of the Attica Peninsula of Greece.

[14][15] In the 19th century, wild Crocus cartwrightianus was harvested on Andros in the islands of the Cyclades, for medicinal purposes and the stigmas for making a pigment called Zafran.