My Corner Online

Flower Index Index by Family 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4 Set 5 Set 6

Crocus vernus (Dutch Crocus)

This video was recorded in 2024 as I continue to move my paper journal to website pages and I study each flower as it blooms in my garden. I started this project in Summer 2023.

FIRST BLOOM DATES

2017 - February 23

2018 - March 16

2019 - Never bloomed!

2020 - February 27 (planted new corms!)

2021 - February 2

2022 - February 28

2023 - January 17

2024 - February 2

Crocus vernus (Dutch Crocus)

Iridaceae family (Pronounced Eer-a-dee-see-eye) (Iris family)

Plural of these flowers are crocuses or croci. Both words are good, but I believe croci is more accurate.

The geneus of this flower is Crocus and I believe the species is "vernus," however, I read there are over 50 species of Spring-blooming crocus bulbs, so I am really not sure what the species of my particular flowers. I want to get some more corms and when I purchase them, purchase with more intentionality to know the specific species. Just look at this list of how many species! One could make a whole hobby of growing just Crocus species.

A few that I am thinking of trying are the Scottish Crocus (C. bifloris), the Early Crocus (C. tommasinianus), and the Golden Crocus (C. chrysanthus)

Also, I had no idea there is such a thing as an Autumn-blooming Crocus! I am certainly going to try to plant these this year (2024). The common Autumn Crocus is Saffron crocus (Crocus sativus). another Autumn crocus (Crocus speciosus). I saw a video where the stigma of the Autumn crocus is very large and long. The stigma is what is collected and dried to make the spice call 'saffron.' It takes a lot of flowers to get a small amount of saffron, so this spice is very expensive.

The Crocus flowers close at night and in overcast weather conditions. I believe I have missed them blooming just because they are not opened up fully. They may have had earlier blooming times than the above list and I just missed it because the Winter months are often dreary grey skied days. The best blooms are when the sky is bright blue and there is snow on the ground! Crocus will bloom even through the snow.

Crucus are corms, but most folks call them bulbs. To be a true bulb it must be a complete plant of both stem and leaves in a tiny package. Corms are only a stem and food storage tissue. Corms are sometimes called "solid bulbs" because they lack the layers. Once grown and flowered, the corm does not grow again, but rather a new corm grows on the base of the old one and next year's flower is from the new cormlet. The old corm shrivels up and the cormlet grows into a corm!

Because saffron of the Autumn Crocus comes from the stigma, it is a good time to learn about the different parts of all flowers. A Crocus has 3 stamens and a style. That sounds like it could be lyrics to a song!

The 3 stamens are the male part of the flower that produces pollen. The stamen is made up of two parts, the filament that holds it up (like a stem) and the anther that produces the pollen.

The style is actually called a pistil, which is female, and is in the middle of the flower. Because the parts are hard to see with the naked eye, I believe that is why it often is called style instead of pistil, because that is the part that you can see with the eye. It has three parts. At the bottom is the ovule and ovary that creates the eggs. Then there is the style that holds it up (like a stem) which is actually a tube. At the top is the stigma. The stigma is a sticky knob.

You can imagine how it works in that it is just like people in that the sticky knob catches the pollen and sends it down the tube to the egg. Or at least that is how I think it works!

Here are two crocus tags for those which I planted in 2019. I do not remember the "Tommies" being purplish pink. They would have bloomed in 2020.

2024

This is a bug just beginning to come up to bloom. They come out of the ground and are not on the top of the leaves. The above photos and these are 2024.