Spring Crocuses 



further East is a washy little imitation of these better 

 forms, greenish on the back, rather the colour you some- 

 times find on the outside of the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, 

 and suggestive of dirty metal German silver, or Britannia 

 metal, " which goes green and smells nasty," as Mrs. 

 Brown knew by experience. C. Olivieri is for all intents 

 and purposes an orange-coloured Balansae without external 

 markings but gargaricus has character of its own, its first 

 flowers coming without leaves, and they are of a soft 

 warm orange, like the reflected depth in the heart of a 

 Van Zion Double Daffodil. It has an original sort of corm 

 too, very small and round, and it splits up in some seasons 

 into a multitude of little yellow pills, very hard to collect 

 out of the soil at lifting time, and you know will require 

 two seasons to grow to flowering size again. But a patch 

 in flower on the rock garden makes up for it all. One 

 little yellow Crocus has an obnoxious trait in its character, 

 and is a little stinking beast, as Dr. Johnson defined the 

 stoat. It is well named graveolens, and its heavy scent is 

 generally the first intimation I get of its having opened its 

 flowers. Sometimes I get a whiff of it even before I reach 

 the Crocus frame an abominable mixture of the odour 

 of blackbeetles and imitation sable or skunk, or one of 

 those awful furs with which people in the next pew or in 

 front of you at a matinee poison you. A dried specimen 

 of this Crocus retains its scent for years, and so does the 

 blotting paper it has been pressed in. I think it emanates 

 from the pollen grains, and I suppose it must be of some 

 use to it in its native country perhaps attractive to some 

 insect of perverted olfactory tastes. It is a vegetable 

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