Week 15: Dutch Crocus, Guillaume Barth, William Herbert

Fig. 1. The Saffron Gatherers (circa 1650 BCE), from the Frescoes at Akrotiri, Santorini (Greece). Museum of Prehistoric Thira.

Headnote#

The crocuses likely have already come and gone. They can return each spring almost too early, before the snow melts, before the robins return, before the atmosphere warms (let alone the soil). Here in my urban neighborhood, the Dutch crocus (Crocus vernus) blooms in tandem with the snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) and just prior to the daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus). These corm-based geophytes, which require 10 to 15 weeks of cold to biochemically shift their apical meristem, or growing point, from leaf- to flower-production, have become such a seasonal marker for me that I assumed they must be native to this landscape. And maybe they are—now. But their journey to here crosses several continents and centuries, through the studios of Dutch painters and the apothecaries brewing saffron concoctions to treat the Black death, across the slopes of the Alps and the diplomatic circuits of Holy Roman ambassadors, originating primarily from the grassy hillsides of Anatolia, the species’ primary center of diversity.

These are ancient origins. John Milton pictured the crocus embroidering the ground of Eden, “more colour’d than with stone / Of costliest emblem,” and the other poets, of course, love the flower’s evocative timing and physical form. Ovid and other Greeks recorded a more tragic tale about Crocus’ place within the empire of flowers. Though long associated with the cradle(s) of civilization, the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), source of the world’s most expensive spice, now is being cultivated across New England, all the way out to Provincetown.

The Crocus genus is part of the trimerous iris family (Iridaceae) but is distinct from the true Iris genus. The Dutch, or spring, Vernus species is one of several that bloom in spring, coming after the precocious tommasinianus (woodland) and chrysanthus (snow), alongside flavus (yellow), and long before the autumn group that includes sativus (saffron) and the beautiful but toxic crocus imposters of family Colchicaceae. Of particular note: the saffron crocus is a mutant or hybrid that contains three sets of chromosomes and is therefore sterile; it has survived as a clone for more than 3500 years through the division and propagation of corms by human hands, and its thread-like stigmas are also still harvested by hand, as they were in Minoan civilization.

Fig. 2. “The Parts of Crocus and Colchicum Flowers,” from from E. A. Bowles, A Handbook of Crocus and Colchicum for Gardeners (London : M. Hopkinson & Company Ltd., 1924).

Readings#

1. C. vernus is one of the most widely extended Croci, and of the easiest culture, producing seeds abundantly, which, as neither the birds nor the mice seem to eat them, become almost a nuisance from the multitude of self-sown seedlings, which come up spontaneously, and intrude where they are not wanted. It is the Crocus of the Alps, but its flower is small there, promiscuously purple and white or whitish, generally with the throat purple on the outside, but always white and hairy within. It reaches Cevennes; and I am told it is to be found, though rare, on the Pyrenees. Brotero states it to be found in the north of Portugal, but his plant is perhaps C. Carpetanus. It extends, with white acute flowers, into Carinthia, and is found white, with very blunt obovate flowers, on the Bavarians Alps, sometimes assuming a blush of purple. I believe it is only found in particular spots on the Pyrenees, affecting the oolite or Jurassic limestone. On the Alps it reaches above 5000 feet of altitude. I have seen it both white and purple from the Tyrol. The finer purple Neapolitan variety inhabits the loftiest mountains of Calabria and Lucania, not descending lower than 5000 feet. On Monte Pollino it flowers as late as June and July, reaching an elevation of 6000 feet. On the Wengern Alp its flowers actually pierce the remaining snow in June.

William Herbert, A History of the Species of Crocus, ed. John Lindley (London, England: William Clowes and Sons, [1847]), pp. 25-26.#

2. In his installation Crocus sativus, fleur du bonheur, Guillaume Barth pays homage to the saffron flower by capturing the moment of its birth. The artist invented a rotating plate system for time-lapse photography so as to reveal the rotating movement of the flower, like the dance of the dervishes for which it is a metaphor. It opens under the full moon and blooms for 24 hours, which is the duration of its life. A video projects this actual size in the middle of a levitating circle with a diameter of four metres. Visitors are invited to stand on a rug whose motif recalls the spiralling form of the petals. There they hear a melody inspired by the root sounds of Sufi tradition, composed by Mirtohid Radfar. The three phases in this music sing the rising of the saffron flower from its bulb, the exaltation of its opening, and then a gentle settling. It sets forth the present moment. There are three circles: the rotating movement of the flower, the circle of the carpet and, above all, the undulating field of the music spinning around us and within us. This multicultural work offers a space of resilience. Known since time immemorial, saffron is a powerful natural anxiolytic associated with joy, luck and regeneration.

Gallery text from Guillaume Barth, Crocus sativus, fleur du bonheur (Studio National des Arts Contemporains du Fresnoy, 2021).#

Fig. 3. “Geographical Distribution of the Genus Crocus,” from George Maw, A Monograph of the Genus Crocus (London, England: Dulau and Co., 1886), pp. 26-27.

Supplementum#

• Anna Trakoli, “Minoan Art, The ‘Saffron Gatherers’, c. 1650 BC,” Occupational Medicine 71.3 (April 2021): 124–126.

• Everett Merill Hill, The Story the Crocus Told (Spokane, Washington: The Uplook Publishing Company, 1909).

• Janis Ruksans, Crocuses: A Complete Guide to the Genus (Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 2011).

Fig. 4. “The Crocus,” from Adolph Baumbach, The Floral Cyclus: 12 Simple Instructive Melodies Composed for the Piano (Cleveland, Ohio: S. Brainard’s Sons, 1851).