Yellow fever in Turkey, March-2013

[Janis Ruksans]

After night in Simav we are going to mountains in North direction. At present weather is quite good but around mooch dark clouds. And I can repeat again the same - only earlier everywhere seen trio - but at first spot all finished blooming. So I’m making only habitat picture and for the first time seen during this trip - Cyclamen mirabile leaves.

     040 Habitat N of Simav.JPG
    042 Cyclamen mirabile.JPG
    043 Crocus chrysanthus -02.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

We drive up and in air appear first snowflakes. There at forest side we spot first Crocus chrysanthus and it seems that side by side are growing Crocus danfordiae. Its flowers are died and not worth to picture. By leaves I identify Crocus pallasii, too. But snow becomes heavier and heavier. Everywhere are blooming Crocus chrysanthus. Phantastic views of bright yellow flowers spotting from snow. They looks completely different from earlier seen (on Bozdag). If I would be 10 years younger - certainly I would start research on this Crocus. By my opinion there are several species included, only not easy to separable visually. It would be excellent job for scientific degree. At present is only accepted that there are included a lot of different cytotypes. Here flowers are purest yellow and only very few have small brownish tongue at outer base. Snow cover becomes thicker and thicker and we must return. Crocus simavensis is growing together with Crocus chrysanthus and I suppose that at first locality we were too late, but higher up it was too early. Of course it is only speculation. So this one was the second failure of our trip.

    043 Crocus chrysanthus -06.JPG
    043 Crocus chrysanthus -08.JPG
    044 Crocus chrysanthus -02.JPG
    045 Crocus chrysanthus corm -01.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

Now we are going to look for Crocus mysius. We take narrow asphalted road to top of ridge through small villages but quite soon are forced to return. Road some kilometres before pass is covered by so deep snow that driving further become dangerous. With help of our hands (pushing car) we turn it around. When we are almost back to main road we stop at small gully and there it is - of course, without flowers but by leaves and corm tunics seem to be true. One more mark on my computers crocus distribution map! Of course far better would be to see it in flowers, but spring was unusually early there - just opposite to previous season when all was in deep snow.

     047 Crocus mysius -02.JPG
    048 Crocus mysius corm -01.JPG
    049 Crocus mysius locality -01.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

By the way we try to drive up on Ulusdag. Road is quite normal but it is late and weather again became worth. Soon we are in clouds which look as fog and again more and more snow on road sides. It is too dark for spotting of crocus leaves, but in flowers are only Crocus flavus dissectus. We are forced to turn back. On road down we stop to picture nice Muscari.

    049 Rd to Ulus-dag top -01.JPG
    049 Rd to Ulus-dag top -02.JPG
    050 Muscari sp. on Ulusdag.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

Still for us left two days and two species to search. So next morning we quickly turn to North. It is quite far road to Čan where on road to Čanakkale Turkish botanist Osman Erol & Co found and described new crocus - Crocus demirizianus. Very similar and most likely identical crocus earlier was found on opposite side from Čan. Checking my notes I found that in 2008 I collected there one corm of Crocus, initially identified as pulchellus (from 5 collected pulchellus, one turned to be spring blooming “biflorus”). So now I want to recheck locality - how widespread it is there and want to compare this one with earlier plant - are they same or not? Here snow great us at much lower altitudes - from 300-400 m altitude all becomes white, but only road remains clean from snow. We are not on top mood, but approximating searched locality snow disappear.
In 2008 there were not much crocuses, I spotted only few pulchellus and some candidus, which in deeper gullies even bloomed. Now new road is built and spotting of correct place is not easy, but this was very famous for two of us locality. In 2008 we there lost Colin Mason and we were forced to call Jandarma for searching with trained dog by his footprints. Fortunately Colin 6 hours later appeared on roadside just before search dog coming. Now seeing on roadside advertisement of “Kolin Hotel” - we joke that this hotel is named in our Colins honour.
Surprisingly, but now ground is covered by Crocus candidus leaves. It is everywhere. What a great contrast with situation 5 years ago. The same I can tell about C. pulchellus, but nowhere I can spot any biflorus leaves. C. candidus is quite special crocus. It can bloom having only one leaf, and usually hasn't more than two leaves.

     051 Crocus candidus -02.JPG
    051 Crocus candidus -05.JPG
    051 Crocus candidus corm -02.JPG
    051 Crocus candidus locality -01.JPG
    051 Crocus pulchellus corm -01.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

There are some Fritillaria sp., Corydalis integra, Tulipa sp.(silvestris?) leaves spotted and plenty of other nature objects to picture.

    052 Fritillaria sp..JPG
    053 Corydalis integra -01.JPG
    054 Butterfly -02.JPG
    054 Colin's locality.JPG
    054 Lichens on stone.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

Finally we decide to go away. We again select small road through villages, but everywhere we spot only two species - pulchellus and candidus. When road becomes impassable, we turn back to main road.

    055 - Best botanists - will find even minor crocus leaf.JPG
    056 Crocus pulchellus locality -01.JPG
    056 Crocus pulchellus locality -02.JPG
    057 Crocus candidus locality -01.JPG
    057 Crocus candidus locality -02.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

After leaving forest zone we turn back and repeat search on other spot by main road. I’m carefully watching roadsides and one place and rock seems familiar to me. We stop there and I’m climbing up. And there it was.  I qalmost didn’t note it because leaves of this crocus are very erect and strongly resemble grass. At this spot it really is growing as grass… Putting GPS records on map we found that distance between my 2008 spot and new spot is only 100 meters.
And again we go further to North - for Crocus bifloriformis earlier regarded as C. biflorus typica in Turkey. I have it, so now I want only to see its habitat - where it is growing, because my stock came from other collectors. By Erich Pasche type locality is over 900 m, although it is growing much wider and at much lower altitudes, too. There are several places which look as good for crocus, when we select one where to stop. Entering shrubs I immediately spotted crocus which by leaves undoubtedly belongs to biflorus group. Here corms lie extremely deep and in very wet (recent rains) sticky clay. It is not easy to get some corm and to make its picture some washing is needed. Corm tunics confirm that it is searched one Crocus bifloriformis although altitude is only 160 m.

    058 Crocus demirizianuys corm -01.JPG
    059 Crocus bifloriformis locality -01.JPG
    059 Crocus bifloriformis locality -02.JPG
    060 Crocus bifloriformis corm -01.JPG
    061 Ibrahim checking coordinates -02.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

Next morning we turn by coast back to Izmir shortly entering some small side road, because on road sides spotted again yellow flowers. There are large spot where recently forest was cut and new pine trees planted. Around is barbed wire fence, protecting plantings from goats and sheep and in same time it protects crocuses, too. In this case it is Crocus flavus type form and for me it is first time when I saw it blooming in nature. Corms lie extremely deep in sticky clay, but I’m digging out one to picture characteristic very long neck of corm tunics. In forest out of fence are only very few specimens, although forest are not thick. There are some Crocus pallasii growing, too.

    062 Crocus flavus flavus -03.JPG
    062 Crocus flavus flavus -05.JPG
    062 Crocus flavus flavus -08.JPG
    063 Crocus flavus flavus & Ibrahim -01.JPG
    064 Crocus flavus flavus corm -01.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

Rest of day we decide for culture - visiting Bergamo with famous ruins of Pergamon at top of hill. This is spot where Crocus nubigena is growing (at least I have one from Archibald, labelled as Pergamo ruins and from same spot is picture of nubigena used by Osman Erol for comparing with demirizianus. Ruins are very impressive, although earlier local people used marble columns from Roman time for producing of chalk. We pass there almost half a day.

    066 Pergamo -19.JPG
    066 Pergamo -28.JPG
    066 Pergamo -34.JPG
    066 Pergamo -40.JPG
    066 Pergamo -41.JPG

[Janis Ruksans]

Road guide us to Manissa, where we pass last night and in morning start driwing to Izmir Airport. We have a lot of time, so at quite low pass we again make some side turn. For great surprise to all of us it results in one more yellow crocus. This case it is Crocus balansae - the last crocus of our trip. It was single flower, for some reason not blooming together with others much earlier, as other plants seen were with seedpods.
The last picture is the same as the first in this trip - Anemone coronaria, but this population is very uniform - all flowers are bright red with white eye.

And this is end of my report. Hope you enjoyed it, not tired for so long reading and sorry for not giving you exact localities. It is only to protect localities from comercial diggers.
Thank you for attention!
Janis

     067 - Crocus balansae -01.JPG
    067 - Crocus balansae -04.JPG
    068 - Crocus balansae habitat -01.JPG
    068 - Crocus balansae habitat -02.JPG
    069 - Anemone coronaria.JPG

[krisderaeymaeker]

Oh yes Janis & Ibrahim , a joy to see ....

We went to the south of Turkey from 3 - 10 march  and have a good time ...

[Oron Peri]

Fantastic report Janis and what a selection!

Your first Ornithogalum is O. refractum while the second i would think of O. beyazoglui rather then lanceolatum.

[Janis Ruksans]

Fantastic report Janis and what a selection!

Your first Ornithogalum is O. refractum while the second i would think of O. beyazoglui rather then lanceolatum.

Thank you, Oron, for identification. I never looked much after Ornithogalums but hope will have time for this... sometime...
Janis

[ikizzeki]

Road guide us to Manissa, where we pass last night and in morning start driwing to Izmir Airport. We have a lot of time, so at quite low pass we again make some side turn. For great surprise to all of us it results in one more yellow crocus. This case it is Crocus balansae - the last crocus of our trip. It was single flower, for some reason not blooming together with others much earlier, as other plants seen were with seedpods.
The last picture is the same as the first in this trip - Anemone coronaria, but this population is very uniform - all flowers are bright red with white eye.

And this is end of my report. Hope you enjoyed it, not tired for so long reading and sorry for not giving you exact localities. It is only to protect localities from comercial diggers.
Thank you for attention!
Janis

     067 - Crocus balansae -01.JPG
    067 - Crocus balansae -04.JPG
    068 - Crocus balansae habitat -01.JPG
    068 - Crocus balansae habitat -02.JPG
    069 - Anemone coronaria.JPG

It is a marvellous writing. I have to thank you for reminding me rich flora of Turkey.We are in it, but  not aware enough..