Crocus. In Classical mythology, Crocus was a mortal youth who, because he was unhappy with his love affair with the nymph Smilax, was turned by the gods into a plant bearing his name, the crocus. Smilax is believed to have been given a similar fate and transformed into bindweed. In another variation of the myth, Crocus was said to be a companion of Hermes and was accidentally killed by the god in a game of discus. Hermes was so distraught at this that he and Chloris transformed Crocus' body into a flower. The myth is similar to that of Apollo and Hyacinthus, and may indeed be a variation thereof. In his translation of Nonnos' Dionysiaca, W.H.D. Rouse describes the tale of Crocus as being from the late Classical period and little-known.