Crocuses pushing through the late Winter leaves in New York's Central Park

…are up, pushing through the late winter leaves…

Cultivation and harvesting of crocus was first documented in the Mediterranean, notably on the island of Crete. Frescos are extant at the Knossos site on Crete^[3] as well as from a comparably aged site on Santorini.

The first crocus seen in the Netherlands, where Crocus species are not native, were from corms brought back from Constantinople by the Holy Roman Emperor’s ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, in the 1560s. A few corms were forwarded to Carolus Clusius at the botanical garden in Leiden. By 1620, the approximate date of Ambrosius Bosschaert’s painting (illustration, below), new garden varieties had been developed, such as the cream-colored crocus feathered with bronze at the base of the bouquet, similar to varieties still in the market. Bosschaert, working from a preparatory drawing to paint his composed piece, which spans the whole of Spring, exaggerated the crocus so that it passes for a tulip, but its narrow, grasslike leaves give it away.

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