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I have many containers of crocus. These I normally leave the bulbs in them to overwinter. This year however I needed the containers for other things and decided to lift the crocus bulbs out and overwinter them in the greenhouse. On lifting the bulbs however it was noticed that many had what appeared to be a second flower growing beneath the soil. On examination these "flowers" were found to be seed pods.
Is it possible to dry these off and grow new crocus from the seeds ?




Answers

 

Seed is produced by the flowers, but not by the bulbs. I imagine you're talking about offsets, or bulbils, which grow around the original bulb. You can take those off, and pot them up, might be about 2 years before they're large enough to flower.

21 May, 2015

 

I don't think so, Bamboo. Remember that crocus flowers appear on 'tubes', the ovary being at the bottom of the tube beneath soil level. The ovaries are just starting to swell with seeds and will appear on the stems at about soil level. I have collected some seeds from ours but most are not ripe yet.
Alan, it is a pity that you have already lifted the bulbs (corms) as the seed may not yet be ripe. Leave the seed pods attached to the corms and keep in a container in a place without much light, eg the garden shed, and let them burst open themslves. Select out any nice fat seeds and sow them.

21 May, 2015

 

Ah, didn't think of that because the question said 'beneath the soil', so I jumped to offsets...

From seed, they'll take a lot longer to produce flowers.

21 May, 2015

 

The seeds that I have just been collecting are from the autumn flowering C. pulchellus. Most of the seed came from first time-of-flowering seed grown corms that I sowed in June 2012, flowering autumn 2014! I will say that I had remarkable germination and they did flower more quickly that expected.

21 May, 2015

How do I say thanks?

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