Crocus: A Field Guide

When considering the afterlife, poet Emily Dickinson predicted a springtime Resurrection, with “the feet of people walking home” to heaven amid clumps of crocuses.

For now we thank those tiny cup-shaped blooms for making late February and early March bearable. Crocus is the herald of spring, offering 90 species of low-growing spring flowers (plus the autumn bloomer, Crocus sativus). Over the years, crocuses will naturalize. Plant their corms under a tree or in a turf lawn. Every spring, by the time the weather is warm enough to start mowing the grass, Crocus will have finished blooming.