My Garden in Spring 



species, which is most likely of garden origin. It is of 

 slender build and pale colouring, and is known as sulphureus, 

 and there are three varieties of it : a self-coloured one known 

 as sulphureus concolor, almost as pale as butter ; a rather 

 faded-looking one, shading nearly to white at the tips of 

 the segments, which is sulphureus pallidus ; and the other, 

 sulphureus striatus, is slightly larger and deeper in colour 

 than concolor, and striped outside with reddish brown. 

 All of them are pretty and interesting, especially in the 

 rock garden, and they have always been perfectly sterile, 

 and the anthers are reduced to mere rudiments. It is 

 curious that C. aureus should have been so sportive long 

 ago and produced such widely different breaks and then 

 ceased to give more, and the sterility of the new forms is 

 so contrary to general experience with a sportive form, 

 which nearly always, if the flowers are not double, shows 

 greater fertility. Every garden ought to have large clumps 

 of the old yellow Crocus to brighten up the bare soil in 

 February, and I find a good place for such is towards the 

 back of borders, round the feet of deciduous shrubs or 

 permanently planted herbaceous plants that cover a large 

 space when in full leaf. They have a fine effect in such 

 places, especially if planted in a thick central mass and 

 with outlying smaller groups as if naturally spreading 

 from the main clump, and to my mind look better than 

 when in bands or small clumps in the front of a border, 

 and they are quite capable of taking care of themselves in 

 the middle distance, whereas the edge is so valuable for 

 more delicate plants. Wherever they can be planted in 

 grass that can be left unmown till their leaves ripen they 

 76 



