Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson CL · Topic 23: Spring garden flowers
150. The crocus
Goal: Your child explains why crocuses can bloom so early, finds the sepals and petals, and plans how to grow them.
You'll need
- Nature notebook, pencil and colored pencils
- A hand lens (magnifying glass)
- A few crocuses in bloom (garden or a pot from a store)
- Watercolors or colored pencils
What's in the book
The first lesson of “Cultivated-Plant Study.” A Teacher's Story about the crocus (which, it says, has a corm rather than a bulb) and the lesson: Leading thought, Method and eleven questions, then two crocus poems.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Crocuses are often the first garden flowers, blooming in late winter or early spring, sometimes through snow. Look in gardens and lawns, or buy a pot of crocuses. Safety: don't confuse them with the fall-blooming autumn crocus, which is very poisonous. No bulbs or corms are food. Wash hands when you come in.
The leading thought
The crocuses appear so early in the spring, because they have food stored in underground storehouses. They multiply by seeds and by corms.
How early?
At what date in the spring have you found crocuses in blossom? Why are they able to blossom so much earlier than other flowers?
Overcoats
Take a crocus just pushing up out of its bulb. How many overcoats protect its leaves?
If you have a pot or a clump with plenty, lift one out gently. Peel back the papery coats. Notice the leaves are pale where they were covered.
The flower
Do the flowers or the leaves have stems, or do they arise directly from the bulb?
Describe the anthers. How long are they? How many are there?
How do the crocus blossoms act in dark and stormy weather? When do they open?
Count: three outer parts (sepals) and three inner (petals), three stamens.
Growing them
Describe how to raise crocuses best; the kind of soil, the time of planting, and the best situations.
Look it up together in a seed catalog or garden book. Crocus corms are planted in the fall.
Nature notebook
Paint or color one open crocus from above and one from the side, with its leaves. Write the date you first saw crocuses bloom this year.
Afterwards
Plant a few crocus corms in the fall, and next spring record the date they bloom.
Answers to the book's problems
They bloom early because food was stored the year before in the corm underground. The flower and the leaves come straight up from the corm with no real stem above ground.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.