The blue color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is only found domesticated.

Some Crocus species are early blooming, and are good garden flowers as they bloom between the early snowfalls. There are about 80 species in the genus. The exact origin of this garden hybrid is obscure.

Crocus genus is native to the Mediterranean region including Europe, the Near East, and northern Africa.  This genus is also found from Europe through much of Central Asia.  Many of these species are early spring blooming. There are about 80 perennial herbs in this genus.  In many species, the flowers emerge before the leaves.  In other members of this genus, the flowers and leaves emerge together.  The leaves of many species have a central white or paler green stripe.  Because there are many hybrids and varieties of these popular garden plants,  it is very difficult to establish species identity of a garden plant. There are six Crocus species now established in North America.

Irises are frequently grown as ornamental flowers in the northern hemisphere.  This group contains primarily forms that have been modified by breeding.

Irises (Family Iridaceae) include the Iris, Gladiolus, Crocus, and other related species. These are important as a family for their beautiful flowers. This family includes approximately 1,800 natural species organized into roughly 92 genera. There are literally thousands of named varieties. In greater North America there are 116 species organized into 23 genera.

Lily Order (Order Liliiflorae) contains several families many of which are noted for their beautiful flowers. In addition to the rushes, this order contains the well-known lily family. Although some authors combine them with the lilies, here the Amaryllis, Iris, and Agave groups are presented in separate families.

Monocots are a large group of plants usually characterized by having leaves with parallel veins and a seed with a single shell. Most flowers are created with multiples of three. In  the older botany texts, the Monocots were considered more primitive than the Dicots. However, many recent authors have placed the Monocots as an offshoot of the primitive Dicots. Here they are placed before the Dicots.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands).

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.

Plant kingdom contains a large variety of different organisms including mosses, ferns, and seed plants. Most plants manufacture their energy from sunlight and water. Identification of many species is difficult in that most individual plants have characteristics that have variables based on soil moisture, soil chemistry, and sunlight.

Because of the difficulty in learning and identifying different plant groups, specialists have emerged that study only a limited group of plants. These specialists revise the taxonomy and give us detailed descriptions and ranges of the various species.  Their results are published in technical journals and written with highly specialized words that apply to a specific group.

On the other hand, there are the nature publishers. These people and companies undertake the challenging task of trying to provide easy to use pictures and descriptions to identify those species.