Well, strictly speaking Colchicum autumnale, or what we call Naked Ladies, because the flowers come up before the leaves, at the end of the summer when the weather is just starting to get cooler and damper. We were in the Pyrenees for 10 days’ backpacking on the long distance GR10 footpath in the Ariege district, and the first day and a half were spent hiking up the valley from the nearest train station to get to the route. 
The path through the valley followed old hollowed out lanes shaded by Hazel, Beech, and often Walnut. I’ve always thought of Colchicum as a flower of meadows and seeing it here suggested that in the past these lanes might have been much more open; certainly the woodland around us had clearly been managed as coppice in the past. (However I see the BBC gardening website says it can be grown in full shade or sun, so maybe it’s just a very adaptable plant).
Trudging uphill for hours (days!) gives you plenty of time to think, and I like trying to imagine what life must have been like, living in the surrounding landscape in times past. Rural France, like most of Europe, has seen huge changes in recent decades, as peasant farming has largely died out and been replaced by mechanised farming and urbanisation. The traces left behind are tantalising: the beautiful old holloways linking villages to mountain pastures, all with their stone walls and some with traces of cobble paving; the overgrown coppice and standard woodland; walnut trees planted near buildings; a surprising number of old stone buildings among the woods, now mostly in ruins but some once quite substantial and well built; old terrace walls, the land once cleared for crops now reclaimed by trees, though often no more than about 40 or 50 years old. I suspect this amazing old stone bridge might raise a few eyebrows if I specified it in a garden build...
When you think about it, there was a good living to be had, in the times when wealth wasn’t about consumer goods. Timber for building, heating and cooking, nuts and berries to be foraged from the woods, a bit of grass for a cow or goats, pigs getting fat on the acorns. Fresh water from the snow melt, summer pastures for the sheep. The paths must have been important: taking your surplus produce to market to trade for things you couldn’t produce, connections to neighbours, and lifelines to guide you home when snow hid all the features of the landscape. No wonder they were carefully built.
Now even the shepherding lifestyle is changing. Flocks are still grazed up on the mountain, but shepherds want a little more comfort and convenience than they did in the past, and apparently they have used the reintroduction of bears to the mountains to lever more money for improvements out of the government, saying they have to stay with the flocks whereas before they could leave them. Now some of the cabanes are block built rather than stone, with satellite dishes, solar panels and improved tracks. There are more
pens for the livestock, and battered old vehicles parked up.
We didn’t see any bears, though knowing they are around is an interesting thought in the middle of the night with just the skin of the tent between you and the night. But I loved the way that walking for days allows you to get far from civilisation, and loved the nights we spent in the open. Other nights we stayed in mountain refuges where we got a good meal and a shower. At the end of September the guardians are getting ready to close up for the Winter and there were only a handful of other hikers.
Compared to the early Summer wildflowers were scarce, though the Colchicum were a constant even up on the high cols. A few vivid pink Dianthus, occasional Gentians. I’m always fascinated by watching the plant communities changing in response to altitude, aspect, or soil type and moisture. ‘Aha, back in the Pulmonaria zone again I see!’. Very boring company for those less interested in botanical niceties; I think my husband has learned to turn a deaf ear to latin names.
Part of the interest of the GR10 is the way it largely follows ancient routes between villages, although this also makes it very strenuous as it descends to the valleys before taking you back up to the cols again. The Haute Route sticks more to the high ground and may actually be kinder to the knees. 
After a particularly long descent on our last day, taking us right down to Ax-les-Thermes, we treated our knees to a couple of hours in a superb thermal spa complex. The water comes out of the ground at temperatures hot enough to scald, and the spa features every kind of whirling, kneading and swirling water, indoors and out, as well as saunas, cold plunge pools and steam rooms. Bliss!
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