Hark, what grows there in the lawn?
Is it a weird fungus?
No, it’s the seed pod of a crocus.
As the crocus seed pod opens up, it reveals these little seeds that remind me of radish seeds.
Once they drop their seeds, the empty seed pods look like this.
In a nearby flower bed, I see lots of seed pods forming.
I’m going to keep an eye on them and collect some of the seeds when the pods open up. Then maybe I’ll sow some of them just to see if I can get them to germinate and grow on.
Though I would imagine it might be several years before a crocus seedling grows big enough to flower.
But I’m in this gardening thing for the long haul, so why not try?
(Yes, generally you should remove the spent blooms of spring flowering bulbs like tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, etc. so they don’t spend their energy producing seeds at the expense of growing a bigger bulb for next year. But for crocus? I don’t think it will matter here if a few crocuses set seeds and thus produce smaller corms. There are literally thousands of them planted all over. I’ve even noticed over the last few years some crocuses showing up where I didn’t plant them, leaving me to believe that they are self-sowing some. I like that!)
I can’t recall ever seeing these. I wonder if my climate conditions aren’t conducive to them forming seeds. For example, too cold at night or not warm enough during the day. I can’t remember if I saw bees visiting. I have a mix of different kinds of crocuses, so I would think at least some of them would set seed in the right conditions.
I was wondering what they were! I assumed seed pods (after I ruled out the possibility of them being mushrooms 😂) but I’m finding it difficult to find any good sources on how I should be harvesting the seeds. Do I just wait until they open and scoop up what drops? I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve mainly ignored the crocus in my yard but this year, I noticed a third one popped up in my butterfly garden between the two that were there last year (among the many others near the bottom of my driveway) so I’ve been paying more attention to them and I only noticed the little mushroom-looking pods today!
Anyhow, thanks for the article and the great pictures! It made it a lot easier to confirm that that’s what I was looking at 😉
My yard in Northern Virginia exploded with crocus this spring. They are growing among other plants along with some weeds so I began to examine them closer. I saw seed pods (thought they were unbloomed flowers) and split one. It contained very pink seeds. Always thought they grew from corms/bulbs. My guess is my explosion is coming from many years of seed pods drying out and reseeding.