Since Matthew revised the Crocuses in 1982, various Balkan crocuses have been listed as subspecies of the Cretan Crocus sieberi, namely:
- Crocus sieberi subsp. nivalis from Taygetos,
- Crocus sieberi subsp. atticus from Attica,
- Crocus sieberi subsp. sublimis from western Greece: from the north of the Peloponnese through northern Greece to Albania and Bulgaria.
The compilation 'Vascular Plants of Greece, An annotated Checklist', published in 2013 in collaboration of the Berlin Botanical Garden and the Hellenic Botanical Society of Athens, separates the three latter subspecies from the Cretan endemism Crocus sieberi and combines them into one single species Crocus nivalis.