Crocus

Where it grows

Crocuses grow wild on mountain meadows, scree, and the verges of melting snow across Europe, North Africa, and central Asia. Garden Dutch crocus and the smaller snow crocus naturalise readily in lawns; saffron crocus is cultivated commercially in Iran, Kashmir, Spain, and increasingly Italy.

How to recognise it

Each corm sends up a tight cluster of grass-like leaves with a silver central stripe and a single chalice-shaped flower. The bloom has six tepals fused at the base into a long perianth tube that anchors it underground rather than on a stem. Bright orange stigmas protrude from the throat.

Garden & cultural uses

The three branched red stigmas of Crocus sativus are picked by hand each autumn and dried to produce saffron, valued by weight more highly than gold. It takes about 150 flowers to yield one gram of the dried spice, which colours Spanish paella, Persian rice, and Indian biryani.

In folklore

In Greek myth Krokos was a mortal turned into the flower after a doomed love affair with the nymph Smilax — a story echoed in many medieval herbals.