Spring Crocuses 



C. Tomasinianus is the Crocus for spreading by seed into 

 natural drifts, or filling a border or slope of rock garden. 

 It replaces vernus in Eastern Europe, and it is not easy 

 to find any definite botanical character to distinguish it 

 from that variable species. Here it certainly hybridises 

 with some forms of vernus. Maw states that its glabrous 

 throat distinguishes it from vernus, but I have never yet 

 seen a flower of it that lacks a plentiful supply of white 

 hairs in the throat, and can only imagine he had some 

 peculiar form of it. On the other hand, I have a beardless 

 form of vernus. Tom, as I feel inclined to call it for short 

 and knowing him so well, is a variable plant ; some races 

 have nearly white outsides and in bud look dull, but half- 

 opened and showing the lavender interior are very pretty. 

 I prefer the deeper-coloured ones though, and have selected 

 some warm, rosy-purple forms, and have got still deeper- 

 coloured seedlings from them. I have also a pure white 

 that is good for contrast, but not an improvement in a 

 species whose chief charm lies in its peculiarly amethystine 

 shade of lilac. One day I went into the garden to try 

 and forget a raging toothache, and nearly succeeded, for 

 a lovely Tom seedling caught my eye, a rosy-hued one 

 with the addition of nearly white tips to each segment, 

 and under each white mark a spot of violet-purple, after 

 the style of the form of vernus called leucorhynchus. The 

 treasure was removed to the frame and has increased to 

 hundreds, and has gone into many other gardens, but if 

 you want to know the end of the tooth you must ask my 

 dentist ; it passed from my keeping to his. I want to get 

 Tom freely grouped in the grass, but it does not increase 

 much there : in a sunny border it conquers new territory 

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