Winter crocuses

I mentioned the crocus earlier as the prairie icon of spring. They come very early, and they take a risk to do so. Sometimes frost will kill most of the seed. Sometimes you even see them blanketed with snow.

Another risk is that unseasonable weather at another time of year will trick them into blooming at a very odd time. Last fall I posted about a crocus I found in Mom's seed gardens in October. Such autumn bloomings are fairly common, when early cold weather apparently resets the plants' clocks, and a subsequent warm spell gets them going as if it's spring. But this past winter, we had some very unusual midwinter warm spells. Debra at PCTC told me there were crocuses blooming in the Qu'Appelle Valley in November and in January.