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Woodland crocus

Crocus tommasinianus

Also called Tomasini's crocus, Early crocus, Tommasini's crocus

Woodland crocus
Photo: Martyn M aka Martyx, CC BY-SA 3.0

Woodland crocus is a small spring-blooming cormous perennial with lilac flowers that naturalizes easily in lawns and woodland. It thrives when planted in autumn in well-drained soil in sun or part shade.

Family
Iridaceae (Iris family)
Grows as
Bulb
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water during dry spells in autumn and spring; let soil dry out in summer while dormant.
Soil
Free-draining soil, ideally gritty or limestone-rich loam.
Temperature
Hardy to about -20 °C when dormant; flowers early in the year.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Toxic: All parts, especially the corms, contain colchicine and other alkaloids that can cause nausea, vomiting and more serious effects if eaten.
Native range
S. Hungary to SW. Croatia and NW. Bulgaria
Climate
temperate

About

Crocus tommasinianus, the woodland crocus, early crocus, or Tommasini's crocus, is a species of flowering plant in the family Iridaceae. It is named after the botanist Muzio G. Spirito de Tommasini (1794–1879). It is native to Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, and the former Yugoslavia. It is often referred to as the early or snow crocus, but these terms are shared with several other species, although C. tommasinianus is amongst the first to bloom. Multiple plants are often called tommies in the horticultural trade.

How to grow it

It naturalizes easily earning an official recognition as a weed and is naturalized in the US state of Delaware. It is often planted in large drifts in gardens and parks.

This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Where it grows

The species is found growing around 1000 meters in woods and on shady hillsides, commonly on limestone with flowering occurring in January and February; the narrow leaves are fully developed by the time the purple flowers with white tubes blooms.

Other Crocus plants

Crocus alexandri · Cloth of gold · Crocus banaticus · Silvery Crocus · Wild Saffron · Snow Crocus · Corsican Crocus · Etruscan Crocus · Yellow crocus · Crocus goulimyi · Saffron Crocus · Sieber's crocus

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Crocus tommasinianus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

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