Country Life
Crocodile tears
Peter Quince
On a day when the wind howled in the tree-tops, and the rain swept across the landscape like an agent of divine retribution, it was pleasant to find a solitary crocus in flower in the garden. It looked a bit bedraggled, as well it might in those conditions, and the weather made sure that no one would be tempted to linger beside it indulging in Wordsworthian apostrophe: a quick retreat to the fireside, after the most cursory inspection, was the only sensible course. Yet it is always cheerful to notice these small signs that even the direst February days must before long be followed by more agreeable times. One crocus is not much to set against a prolonged wintry storm, perhaps, but it is something.
This habit of braving the mud and chill of the season no doubt accounts for the popularity of the crocus with gardeners of all sorts, from the least ambitious upwards. So far as I am concerned, there is a second reason for satisfaction when crocuses begin to show their bright blobs of yellow and purple under the apple-trees. Crocuses i seem, regrettably, to be as popular with sparrows, slugs, mice and possibly other predators as with,
their human admirers. The annuli' casualty rate is annoyingly high' and there have to be fair,IY frequent replacements. It is a relief to establish, each spring, that reasonable number of survivors have won through from last year, I suppose the crocus flourished more robustly in those Medi' terranean lands where it origin, ed, and it may be that we shoinu be grateful it survives as pier!' tifully as it does in our cooler and damper latitudes. Its very name hints at its earlier history,being 3 Greek derivation; and there is even a reference to it in the Song of Solomon, although there it is saffron, the autumn-flowering crocus, which is mentioned. 13"At saffron, too, has been naturalise' in this country. It was grown here commercially, as a spice and as a dye, for many centuries — hence the place-name of Saffron Walden. long the centre of its cultivation. I was interested to hear the other day of an attempt to re-establish saffron as a crop in that part of Essex. I should thifl though, that it is one of the most tiresome crops imaginable t° produce. The valuable part of th_e plant consists only of the anther' inside the flower, and they have to be picked, according to tradition, in the early hours of the morning' just as the flowers are beginningt to open after the night. MI' saffron has always been valued as a source of wonderful colour, 8,! well as for culinary purposes; 11 was also much in demand as a medicine in less scientific times. The autumn crocus, incidentallY, seems to survive more abundantlY in my garden than the varieties which are now beginning to come into flower, but that may be a local quirk. I am always interested in the history which lies hidden within the names of plants, and I hav,e, lately learned that there is sonl' sort lainndk ,bcerotwcnedeinhe wor letds My of Doctor Johnson's dictionc°aP11:Y confidently asserts that 'crocodile, means, quite simply, afraid 0." crocuses, being derived from Ow Greek words meaning 'saffr°n; fearing.' This seems a tall story, 0; the face of it; yet a little rn°re inquiry showed me that Or adcecreivpatetdiofnorwcaeshtuurniqesuestioning And if one asks, as one vct"! reasonably might, why crocodire should be afraid of crocuses, t" answer is that they were long( supposed to have some kind special distaste for, or strongri; at/ersion to, the presence of th,s blameless plant. The crocodile_ disreputable habit of sheddini deceitful tears is a familiar bit 110` animal mythology; the seve,5 teenth century scholar Thorn° Fuller combined this with its Si), posed dread of crocuses irl,trs statement that "the crocodile,. tears are never true save when,11., is forced where saffron growetf,,t I find it rather disappointing tu:r supportthisl exictohgeoryraphers no lo
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