My Garden in Spring 



the white ground, and is a fine variety. Both forms are 

 delightful in the rock garden or in any sunny corner, and 

 the diphyllous race are great seeders, and soon colonise 

 in a kind home where hoes harrow not too harshly. 



C. Sieberi is another indispensable one of the earliest 

 to appear, generally showing up about Twelfth Night. It 

 is chubby in shape and a cool, bluish-lilac in colour, with a 

 very rich yellow throat ; it is a good increaser both from 

 seed and offsets, and though it comes from sunny Greece 

 is very hardy, and the blossoms stand snow and frost 

 better than many others. Max Leichtlin sent out a good 

 deep-coloured form of it as C. aftt'cus, but it is certainly 

 no more than a good variety of Sieberi. The Cretan form 

 is one of the most glorious of all known Crocuses, for the 

 ground is white, the throat a very rich orange colour, and 

 the outer segments are marked externally with bands or 

 streaks of a curious shade of purplish-crimson unlike that 

 in any other Crocus. Unfortunately it is very rare in 

 gardens, and has not been collected for a great many 

 years, as it is said Cretan brigands will murder even good 

 little plant-collectors honest root-gatherers as Parkinson 

 would call them for the value of their skins, and C. Sieberi 

 versicohr grows up among their mountain strongholds. 

 Although it has as large and conspicuous scarlet stigmata 

 as any Crocus it produces but little pollen, and flowers 

 later than other forms of Sieberi, so I, and a neighbour 

 who has caught Crocus fever from me, have hard work to 

 get any seeds from this variety, and think ourselves lucky 

 if we can sow half a dozen each season. Some of the 

 results have been very encouraging, and we have got a few 

 with the red markings on a pale lavender ground colour. 

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