re ee i ee Ly is Re Se 
cha ok Sp a Fa ae 
: ~s : Ky ; 's ce 
~ 
280 
‘‘what’s in a name?’ and next season buy a few Paper : 
White or Double Roman Narcissus for one-fifth the price _- 
_and treat as you did the Lily, and the result will be equal. 
CROCUS. 
=e CCORDING to some authors, these bright little 
== flowers, which derive their name from a Greek word 
signifying thread, from the fact of their thread or fila- 
ment being in such request for saffron dye. The Greeks 
fabled that Crocu, a beautiful youth, was transformed 
into this flower; as his lady-love, Smilax, was at the 
same time into a yew-tree. Bees are exceedingly fond of 
the Crocus; and Moore thus alludes to this faet in Lalla 
Rookh: 
Fhe busiest hive 
On Bela’s hills is less alive, 
When saftron-beds are full in flower, 
Than looked the valley in that hour. 
The Crocus is divided into two ciasses; the first, those 
. that flower in early Spring, too well known to need des- 
cription; the second, the Autumnal flowering, or naked 
Crocus, so called because the flowers are produced in the 
absence of leaves, which, with the seeds, are thrown up 
in the Spring. The Spring Crocus is of the easiest cul- 
ture, and we need only remark, that it is a mistake to 
put them into poor ground, since no plants in our garden 
delight more in, or make greater returns for, rich soil. 
They require a dry situation, and in such a place and soil 
they flower profusely. The bulbs or corms should be 
planted at least three inches deep; for, as the new corm 
forms above the old one, they will in three or four years 
push themselves out of the ground if planted too near the 
surface. As often as once in three years the corms should 
