CROCUS. 
little loveliness from Greece, with a variety C. S. versicolor, diversified 
with white and violet, from Crete. 
C. stellaris may possibly be the child of C. sustanus and C. aureus. 
In the early year it makes a star of bright gold, and is finely feathered 
with brown on the outside. 
C. susianus has cups of brilliant orange gold, heavily striped 
with dark-brown varnish outside, and opening into a wide star with 
so much heartiness that the segments often go too far and turn down 
the other way. It opens to the first call of the February sun, and 
belongs to the southerly parts of Russia. 
Group II.—Corms DRESSED IN Firsprous MEMBRANE, 
not NETTED 
C. Balansae now takes up the torch, coming into bloom with 
February and continuing onwards. It lives in Asia Minor, and has 
ragged stigmata, and golden flowers bronzed and browned outside. 
The best form of all wears the three outer segments entirely 
veneered with polished dark mahogany. 
C. Boryi is the white of old ivory, but asks protection for the big 
blooms with their white anthers and much-cleft stigmata. (Greece.) 
C. caspius dances by the shores of the Caspian Sea—one of the 
finest of its race, and one of the best to grow. The anthers are yellow, 
and the stigmata uncloven and unfringed, and the royal upstaring 
star is milky-white, in the cooling greyness of October, onwards into 
the darkness of December. 
C. laevigatus may always be known by the eccentric fashion of 
its corm’s overcoat, which is of very tough skin, breaking into van- 
dykes at the base in a manner unmistakable. The tough skin per- 
vades the constitution of this lovely plant, too, for it sails unperturbed 
through October into January, never tiring in production of its 
varying white or lilac flowers, varyingly feathered and striped with 
violet. 
C. Suterianus, however, has to be content with plain orange stars. 
C. Olivieri does the same, but makes up with broader foliage. Both 
flower in spring. 
C. Tournefortii never learns wisdom. For lovely though it be in 
October and November with its wide stars of gentle lavender, white- 
anthered and with slashed stigmata—those tender stars, once they 
are opened, do not know how to shut again, any more than the heart 
of man. Accordingly they require the protection against storms 
which that other delicate flower requires also, but in vain. 
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