Crocus October, 2018

[Janis Ruksans]

Here started real summer. Yesterday + 21 and was beat national record for 12th of October. Fort me horribly much to do in greenhouse - removing of died flowers to prevent Botrytis infection, which starting on flowers can kill corm, too. Checking of names, still few herbariums are needed - as I wrote before - this year I planted crocuses deeper than usually, so taking some out of pot is very difficult. Yesterday replaced one pot of C. vallicola and all new roots already came out through bottom holes of pots.
Some more crocuses of today - in this entry Crocus tournefortii from different Islands. See the colour of throat - different and quite typical for each Island. Most interesting is pure albino from Karpathos Island - collected accidentally in spring without flowers.
As bonus picture I decided to include here photo made by Dima in Abchasia - region actually occupied by Russia, where people from Baltic republics are not allowed to enter. It is crocus regarded as suworovianus by Russian botanists, but most likely it is some variant of so named scharojanii flavus, but very different from those in cultivation.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wow !    the scharojanii flavus is truly of exceptionnal beauty Janis !

This popped up in a pot of seedlings of Crocus hittiticus which it obviously is NOT.

I think it might be Crocus ligusticus judging by the flower.
Can anybody confirm or deny this ?? 

[Maggi Young]

Photos from Twitter  by  Vivien Self of  the Farrer Medal Best in Show winning  pot  from today's AGS  show at Harlow Carr - of Crocus banaticus 'SnowDrift' grown by Alan Furness-





 edit: was awarded best in show but not Farrer medal. 

[Janis Ruksans]

Fantastic banaticus - real showwinner!

Here few more pictures made by Dima in Abchasia - various degree of yellow and vallicola + hybrid (?) in background.

[Janis Ruksans]

For few days I was out of Latvia and today half as day I was taking off old flowers, making some pictures and watering. Tomorrow will follow the same - temperature still beats all records and pots dries.
In this entry at first is crocus growing 400 km East from C. mathewii - near Moca Gecidi in Turkey. It is not seedling but originally collected plant, labeled as C. pallasii aff.
Then 2 pictures of another relative of C. pallasii - now from Chios Island. This stock is named 'Homeri'.
The plant on last picture was destroyed as virus infected. I never before saw such in my collection, but this year several similar appear between various pallasii, and in one mathewii pot. In total 7 similar individuals were destroyed. I'm not sure that it is infection, so 2 pots where was planted only one corm in each and which formed such flower were replaced to another greenhouse for checking - will flowers will be similar next season too or it is only mechanical damage or temperature shock. But I'm for 99% sure that it is virus infection.

[Janis Ruksans]

I'm almost 100% dsure that Chios plants known as "pallasii" belongs to another, new species, but are they different from W Turkish "pallasii"I'm not so sure. To check this I pollinated Turkish "pallasii" from near Labranda  with so named "pallasii" 'Homeri'.
Here you can see seedlings from this cross.
On the last picture is C. kofudagensis crossed with 'Homeri'.

[tonyg]

The plant on last picture was destroyed as virus infected. I never before saw such in my collection, but this year several similar appear between various pallasii, and in one mathewii pot. In total 7 similar individuals were destroyed. I'm not sure that it is infection, so 2 pots where was planted only one corm in each and which formed such flower were replaced to another greenhouse for checking - will flowers will be similar next season too or it is only mechanical damage or temperature shock. But I'm for 99% sure that it is virus infection.

I have had flowers such as these on Crocus goulimyi and Crocus kotschyanus this autumn - in more than one pot of each.  Some were recent seedlings, not 'old stock'.  I have been removing them as virus has been a problem here :-(  I've seen such occasionally in past years but this year - many.  Maybe it's the strange weather making deformed flowers but .....

[tonyg]

Wow !    the scharojanii flavus is truly of exceptionnal beauty Janis !

This popped up in a pot of seedlings of Crocus hittiticus which it obviously is NOT.

I think it might be Crocus ligusticus judging by the flower.
Can anybody confirm or deny this ?? 

Yes - I think you are right.  The corms are reticulated so similar to hittiticus ..... or maybe all the seedlings are ligusticus?

[Janis Ruksans]

I have had flowers such as these on Crocus goulimyi and Crocus kotschyanus this autumn - in more than one pot of each.  Some were recent seedlings, not 'old stock'.  I have been removing them as virus has been a problem here :-(  I've seen such occasionally in past years but this year - many.  Maybe it's the strange weather making deformed flowers but .....

Yes, with me few were just seedling pots at their first blooming after planting out from pot where they were sawn, and I had minimal virus problems before. So I'm still not sure that it is virus. The deformation something resembles symptoms of viruses transfered through soil by some so named "free living nematodes", but my substrates are sterile and changed every year, so possibility of presence of such nematodes is very minimal. But for safety I destroyed all suspicious plants - really replaced out of collection was only two pots for checking of plants next autumn.

[Janis Ruksans]

Regardless of very poorly looking corms this season, few Crocus banaticus even bloomed. Here picture of such, not the best form, but at least it blooms and was pollinated to get some seeds for restoring stock, if most will be lost (I hope will alive )
On next picture is new species from Israel. I was ready to publish it, when got information that it is in processing by HKEP, so for not to make our interrelations even more worse (they already are not bright...), I decided to step back. For me it is not so important, I'm not working on "Project" money and I'm paying everything by myself, not using European tax-payers money. So - one or few more or less - for me is not important. For similar and other reasons I cancelled publication of some 6-7 or even more new species from Balcans, Turkey, Jordan...
The last three pictures show you enormous variability of Crocus cartwrightianus. The first two are from Naxos Island and the third is cultivar 'Purple Heart'

[Janis Ruksans]

In this entry two of Crocus speciosus sensu lato (in the widest concept) from Iran. Crocuses related to Crocus speciosus are growing along all S coast of Caspian Sea - starting from Talish and ending at E corner of Caspian Sea. But really it is distributed much wider - starting from Greece, along both coasts of Black Sea (Crimea and to East), throughout Turkey along Mediterranean and inside, as well as along Black Sea, too.
From Iran at present two species are published - Crocus archibaldiorum from West and C. zubovii from East, but there are a lot of interesting populations between those two. Here I will present two of them.
The first was observed quite high in mountains (alt. 2300 m) where it was growing on open meadows together with Crocus gilanicus (the last more in shrubs). It surprised me by the length of stolones. There were very few plants with seedpods, mostly they multiplied just by stolones, may be for heavy grazing of meadows? On the first picture you can see such stoloniferous plant, pictured in mountains. Next shows its flowers. When you will observe both flower-pictures - you will see that in one stigma is distinctly below tips of anthers, in another well overtopping them.
The last two represents at much lower altitude growing sample - only 1200 m, growing in forest. It was the most abundantly multiplying by cormlets in wild plant ever seen by me. Usually I observed with no one or not more than 2-3 cormlets. Here again pictured wild plants, at this case I had my notebook in pocket so was possible to use some measuring - gridlines are 5 mm.
Just the highland'sample (and many others, too - between them Crocus youngiorum) put in my brain doubt about Kerndorff's theory about importance of position of stigma in flower for identification in cases when it is variable - some percentage of plants has stigmatic branches positioned below tips of anthers, some are equal and some overtops. Kerndorff even counts special index showing average position of stigma for each species. Although I used this in my monograph, too, now I'm quite doubtful about its value. My observations shows that position of stigma varies depending from age of flower and between seasons. This autumn I planted 50 pots with 1 corm in each (5 biflorus group species, 10 pots from each) for careful measuring of position of stigma regarding anthers and how it is kept/changing during blooming.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Yes - I think you are right.  The corms are reticulated so similar to hittiticus ..... or maybe all the seedlings are ligusticus?

Thanks Tony !
Actually I did already have a hittiticus flowering in the same pot last year.  I suppose/hope it was a stray seed ! 
Thx for the help.

[Mariette]

Photos from Twitter  by  Vivien Self of  the Farrer Medal Best in Show winning  pot  from today's AGS  show at Harlow Carr - of Crocus banaticus 'SnowDrift' grown by Alan Furness-

(Attachment Link)

(Attachment Link)

 edit: was awarded best in show but not Farrer medal. 

Really admirably grown! Unfortunately, my specimen died, as did ´First Snow´. From others I learned, that they lost their occasionally appearing white seedlings. Are the white forms of Crocus banaticus more difficult than the coloured ones?

Today I noticed a lonely growing  chance seedling of crocus in a border, which may be my first hybrid between Crocus speciosus and pulchellus?

[Janis Ruksans]

Really admirably grown! Unfortunately, my specimen died, as did ´First Snow´. From others I learned, that they lost their occasionally appearing white seedlings. Are the white forms of Crocus banaticus more difficult than the coloured ones?

Today I noticed a lonely growing  chance seedling of crocus in a border, which may be my first hybrid between Crocus speciosus and pulchellus?

At first about seedling - I don't think that pulchellus blood is involved. Usually those hybrids has white anthers. It more resembles C. xantholaimos, if you had such in your collection.
White banaticus are not more difficult than blue ones, 'First Snow' here is even more easy. I think that common mistake is keeping too wet during summer rest. Seeing banaticus in wild growing under huge beach-trees (Fagus silvatica), I understood that in summer corms are in completely dry conditions. Around month ago (see September forum) I found two whites where my used potting mix were deposited. Both perfectly bloomed in absolutely dry soil under large oak (Quercus) and different shrubs (some Salix). When I was sawing seeds of white banaticus, most of seedlings were blue, but few were white.

[Mariette]

Thank You for Your information! Possibly I kept my white Crocus banaticus too wet in summer, indeed.
As I never grew Crocus xantholaimos, the seedling shown is most likely one of the larger group of Cr. speciosus growing nearby, which is very uniform and most likely the variety ´Artabir´. What puzzled me are the white filaments I didn´t notice with my other Crocus speciosus.