314 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
arch slightly over them. At first only the anthers are 
mature, and the moths that alone can reach the honey, 
using them for alighting purposes, get their under- 
sides dusted with pollen. In a slightly older flower 
the stigmas by bending apart place themselves in the 
way of getting this pollen transferred to them; but 
should the insects fail to appear, the stigmas press 
down between the anthers in such a way that they 
dust themselves with pollen. The ovary is hidden 
away among the bases of the leaves, and not until 
considerable growth has taken place is it brought up 
above ground by the lengthening of the flower-stalk. 
A peculiar thing is the simultaneous appearance 
of the pods of the two species: the Autumnal Crocus 
keeps her pod hidden until the following April, yet 
the Vernal Crocus that flowers in March has her pod 
above ground at the same date as the other. All the 
species of Crocus observe the same rule. 
About midsummer, when the seeds are ripe and 
red, the three valves of the spindle-shaped capsules 
open and distribute them; but now a difference 
appears, for the seeds of the Autumnal species 
germinate in November, whilst those of the Vernal 
species remain quiescent until the following spring. 
There is another way in which the Crocus gets 
propagated: at the base of each shoot arising from 
an old corm there will be formed after the flowering 
period a little corm, so that as each corm produces 
several leaf-bundles there will be a similar number 
of new corms clustered on the remains of the old one, 
and these will, of course, be nearer the surface. Each 
succeeding year the corms will be more crowded and 
less deeply buried, until at last they lie close together’ 
