Isn’t it wonderful? Crocuses are back in bloom in the landscape! Well, mine are. If yours aren’t, they should be soon.
If you don’t have any crocuses, shame on you. Crocuses are wonderful little plants. These bulbs are inexpensive, early bloomers, low maintenance, deer resistant and reliable multipliers. Mark your calendar now to remind yourself to purchase some this fall to add to your landscape.
If their sturdy reliability and bright colors aren’t enticing enough, consider these other fun facts about crocuses:
* We usually say crocuses when we speak of more than one of the plant. Crocus can also be the plural form of the word, like one moose, two moose. But you can also correctly say croci, just like it’s perfectly acceptable to say cacti instead of cactuses. It’s not Latin; it’s Greek.
* We lump croci in with bulbs, but they are really corms and members of the Lily family.
* Saffron spice comes from the crocus flower – Crocus sativus to be precise. Saffron is the stigma of the flower. It is one of the fall blooming croci (I love saying “croci.” Croci. Croci. I know it’s silly). Anyway, this corm is hardy in our area. It is the world’s most expensive spice at roughly $1,500 per pound. Don’t count on becoming a saffron farmer unless you have a lot of land. It takes about 80,000 stigmas to make a pound — all of which must be harvested by hand.
* Saffron was also once used for a very expensive dye because of the lovely yellow color it imparts to whatever it touches.
* The earliest flowering croci are snow croci or C. chrysanthus. If you have larger flowering croci, you probably have the Dutch crocus or C. vernus.
* In addition to saffron crocus, C. speciosus, C. laevigatus and C. longiflorus bloom in the fall.
* You may think you have a fall blooming crocus when you actually have an Autumn crocus or Colchicum speciosum. Colchicums look a lot like croci but the flowers are much, much larger.
Finally, crocus comes from the Greek word “kroki,” which means weft, the thread on a loom. A much more entertaining story is that Krokus was a young Spartan lad who fell in love with a nymph who spurned his love. Or, maybe he was a friend of the Greek god Hermes and was accidentally killed as the two were playing around with a discus. Either way, he died and was turned into the crocus flower, which gives us the lovely clusters of croci we enjoy each winter.
Croci. Croci. There — I think I got it out of my system now.
Croci.
* J.D. Walker’s garden column appears each Thursday. Follow her on Facebook at GardenSown.