Focus on Flowers

Show #3: Crocus

The earliest blooming crocus, normally seen in colonies in older gardens is pale lavender with small delicate petals. When they naturalize or spread across a lawn or garden they create a wonderful lilac haze. The more modern varieties bloom later, especially those known as Dutch crocus, which are showier, larger and have petals with substance and sheen. There are deep purple, white, blue, yellow and variegated blooms with thin grass - like foliage. Crocus grow from corms, which are immune to cold, but very attractive to squirrels and rodents. They can be planted in the fall until the ground freezes in sun or partial shade, though the ones in full sun will bloom first. They can be planted in ground cover and are good companions for small early blooming iris reticulata and the early miniature daffodils. The genus name from the Greek "Korkos" meaning threads, and the common name, is the same.

The tips of the pistils of the flowers, on which pollen is deposited during pollination, are called stigmas. Saffron is made by collecting the stigmas of the oldest cultivated crocus (crocus sativa) and this is very painstaking work, as it must be done by hand. Native to Spain, North Africa and the Mediterranean region the crocus has been a useful and much loved plant for centuries. An excavation in Crete yielded a jug decorated with drawings of crocus blooms believed to be made as early as 1500 B.C.

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Created and maintained by Michael Toler
Last updated: Thursday, June 10, 2004
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