Crocuses

Crocuses, like Hamlet’s sorrows, come not as single spies, but in battalions. And stealthy battalions at that. One day, there is no sign of them, while the next they have popped up everywhere. Anyone who walks across a public park daily to get to work and suddenly, one morning, comes across a veritable carpet of plump Dutch crocuses, purple and yellow, will know what I mean.



That jack-in-the-box character is only part of the fascination that crocuses have to offer us. For me, their appeal lies as much in the way they open their petals out when the sun warms them as in their colours. It may be a no-nonsense bio-chemical reaction to sunlight, but it is still reminds me of the way I feel like stretching my arms out to enjoy the February sunshine, so it always makes me smile.

Nor is that all, for the styles (that is, stigmas and stalks inside the flowers) exhibit an intriguing variety of form, depending on the kind of crocus it is. I really enjoy going round the garden on a sunny day, peering into crocus flowers to observe the branching of the golden or red styles. In fact, this is one way that botanists identify different species. The styles of the well-known spring-flowering Crocus chrysanthus, for example, are orange-red and divided into three, while those of Crocus sieberi are fringed. The styles of Crocus imperati are so divided that they look like masses of fine orange threads.

The styles of the autumn-flowering Crocus sativus - believe it or not - provide the culinary spice and yellow dye that we know as saffron. It seems remarkable now that saffron was once commercially grown and harvested in this country; indeed, it was so important to the prosperity of one part of Essex that there is a town named after it - Saffron Walden. It would be nice to think that such a benign industry could be resurrected, especially since saffron is the most expensive spice you can buy, but the summers would have to get a bit hotter and winters appreciably colder before it was viable again. And I rather doubt you could get people to pick the flowers. It would be back-breaking work, which we would not appreciate; after all, it takes 100,000 flowers to make just a kilo of dried culinary saffron and the harvest has to be done very quickly. Crocus sativus is grown for profit in central Spain, Iran, Greece and Kashmir and has been cultivated for more than 3,000 years. As well as its culinary use, it is a textile dye and also in the past was also used in medicine. Indeed, there is some recent evidence that it has anti-cancer properties.

What really tickles me about the crocus is that it is one of the few plants which can correct my shortcomings as a gardener. It has the capacity to draw itself down to the right place in the soil, using what are called “contractile” roots. So even if I get the planting depth wrong, the crocus ends up in the right place in the end. Indeed, I really don’t see how further evolution could possibly improve on the crocus. Except perhaps to make the bulbs taste unpleasant to mice and squirrels. Yes, and make the flowers more weatherproof in February, provided it did not detract from their unique beauty.

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