We are having an early warm day today!

The crocus under an old oak in back, are heated by reflected
South exposure sun on the wooden fence, and come up earlier than our others.

The little purple species have been blooming for a couple of days scattered in the yard.

These today are early hybrid larger ones. Both clumps come from a few bulbs I put in decades ago...that have just increased.
That spot is warm surrounded by some icy mud that I had to go thru to get these two photos. They look inviting from a distance.

That is great you found your mystery plant. It is fun to have surprises. When my son moved into his first home, he had a mystery plant by the back patio sliding door, in some shade.
It came up before anything else, and we discovered it was a Hellebore!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellebore

First time I had ever seen one!

You know, Lara, Google images is just so handy! What did we do before it came about? LOL

Icy mud! Golly Gosh.

They're beautiful. Thanks SO much for going through the icy mud to take the photos.

I love Hellebores. I was supposed to do a botanical art course some years back but wasn't able to do it because my daughter was ill. Hellebores are great flowers/plants to paint in watercolour.

I have this book on Medieval Flowers. It's just amazing.

It's in the section titled "Woodlands"
Says Thanks for that.

Awesome! Mine just came up (and then died quickly - they're in the shade). It's so nice to have plants that come up automatically, year after year!

Very neat, Zipster. I'm in Southern Hemisphere so mine were Autumn Crocus. They've stopped now, so will have to wait again for Spring I guess, but I just love those surprises, especially in this sub-tropical climate where nothing much changes from season to season.