By Bill Koehnlein
The statistics are in and it turns out that this past February has been the coldest one New York City has seen since 1934, and the fourth coldest on record. Even penguins couldn’t take it anymore and sought shelter wherever they could find it. So it was with delight one mid-February day, when the temperature was pushing zero and the wind blew relentlessly at 30 mph that people working at Earth Matter’s Center discovered some newly-sprouted crocuses popping out of the ground in a protected little nook.
The crocus (Crocus sp.) is a perennial flowering plant in the Iris family. There are almost a hundred different species; some flower in the summer, some in the fall. But the crocuses that winter-weary New Yorkers appreciate best are those that sprout around this time of year, a group of several species collectively called snow crocuses. These flowers’ “corms” (the part of the stem that grows underground, similar to a bulb) spend a dormant time in the frozen soil throughout the winter, hibernating, as it were, until they are ready to send their shoots above ground, soon to flower. They thrive with freezing temperatures and a neutral to slightly acidic soil pH of 6.0 – 7.0, and if, after they sprout, a snowfall covers them no harm will be done. Hardy little things they are!
When we spot the first snow crocuses we are in a bit of awe. After all, how could any plant possibly grow, and thrive, in this frigid weather? But grow and thrive they do, year after year. These croci have been living in their spot for at least two decades; they could not have been planted later than 1996 because that section of Governors Island had been effectively abandoned, unused and untouched since the United States Coast Guard moved out that year. That is certainly a testament to these little plants’ hardiness and determination to hang in, having gone through hurricanes, blizzards, heat waves and whatever other adversity fickle weather can bring, and these earliest signs of spring-on-its-way remind us that the cold will soon be gone and that we will, at last, happily shed all our winter clothing layers and eagerly bask in the warm sunshine.