Kleiner Frühlingsgruß in lilööö...

...springtime greetings in purple / lilac!

Nature definitely can't wait any longer - this winter was pretty too long.

Now one can find crocuses everywhere in our latitudes.

Those I found during our weekend trip last week on the waterfront of Lac de Morat (Lake Murten / Murtensee) in the canton of Fribourg (& Vaud) in the west of Switzerland.

A little excursion to wikipedia:

Crocus (plural: crocus, crocuses) is a genus of perennial flowering plants, native to a large area from coastal and subalpine areas of central and southern Europe (including the islands of the Aegean), North Africa and the Middle East, across Central Asia to western China.

The genus Crocus is placed botanically in the iris family (Iridaceae). The plants grow from corms and are mainly hardy perennials, and are found in a wide range of habitats, including woodland, scrub and meadows.

There are about eighty species of crocus (of which approximately 30 are cultivated). Their cup-shaped, solitary, salverform flowers taper off into a narrow tube. Their color varies enormously, although lilac, mauve, yellow and white are predominant. The grass-like, ensiform leaf^[1] shows generally a white central stripe along the leaf axis. The leaf margin is entire. Crocuses typically have three stamens. The spice saffron is obtained from the stigmas of Crocus sativus, an autumn/fall-blooming species.

The name of the genus is derived from the Greek krokos (κρόκος), which—like the Hebrew karkōm, Aramaic kurkama, Persian and Arabic kurkum—means saffron or saffron yellow.