SPRING CROCUS 



dust themselves with pollen. The ovary is hidden away among the 

 bases of the leaves and not until considerable growth has taken 

 place is it brought up above-ground by the lengthening of the 

 flower stalk. The Crocus bears seeds in midsummer, but few 

 garden crocuses are propagated in this way; the life of the plant 

 passes on by way of the corm rather than by the seed. At the 

 base of each shoot, arising from an old corm, there will be formed, 

 after the flowering period, a little corm, and as there are several 

 leaf-bundles there will be an equal number of new corms clus- 

 tered on the remains of the old one. These, of course, are 

 nearer the surface than was the parent. If undisturbed, the 

 corms of each succeeding year will be more crowded and less 

 deeply buried, until at last they lie close together at the surface. 

 This is the reason for the gardener's advice to lift the corms 

 every two or three years. 



The Crocus lends itself to a great variety of effects with its rich 

 purples and yellows, its delicate mauves and whites. The flowers 

 are beautiful anywhere, but especially upon the lawn in the grass, 

 because having only insignificant leaves of their, own they look the 

 better for a background of green. * 



The cultivation of Crocus satlvas is a very old industry. Its 

 large orange stigmas contain a strong-scented volatile oil and a 

 rich yellow dye. These stigmas and a portion of the style are 

 gathered and dried and form the saffron of commerce. Five 

 pounds of the fresh stigmas are' said to yield one pound of the 

 dried. Saffron was formerly of great repute in the materia med- 

 ica, and still enjoys that reputation in Oriental countries, but is 

 rarely prescribed elsewhere by the profession. The present supply 

 comes chiefly from Persia. 



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