Crocus January 2014

[krisderaeymaeker]

Crocus biflorus ssp. nubigena .

[krisderaeymaeker]

Crocus biflorus ssp. nubigena again .........

[krisderaeymaeker]

Crocus michelsonii .

[Cyril L]

Beautiful crocus Kris.

Crocus michelsonii 'Turkmenian Night', a dark flowered selection.

[Cyril L]

The best doer among my Crocus michelsonii clones is an unnamed one given to me by Steve Garvie in 1994 (Thanks Steve).  Here it is flowering a few years ago.  Neglect (lack of regular repotting) reduced its numbers but it is bulking up again.

[Steve Garvie]

Jings Cyril, that seems like a century ago ........in fact it was!   

My own stock cooked some years ago in the great Garvie greenhouse drought. Makes me weep when I think of all the good plants I have managed to kill. I think the RHS still have me blacklisted as a horticultural terrorist!   

[krisderaeymaeker]

The best doer among my Crocus michelsonii clones is an unnamed one given to me by Steve Garvie in 1994 (Thanks Steve).  Here it is flowering a few years ago.  Neglect (lack of regular repotting) reduced its numbers but it is bulking up again.

  Indeed  very floriferous Cyril. Stunning plant !

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Amazing potfuls Cyril ! 

[Yann]

Crocus biflorus ssp. nubigena is a stunning one

[Janis Ruksans]

Very nice pictures in last entries. Greetings to all growers!
Few days ago I wrote that it is my last entry in January, but today I brought in one more pot. Last night we had minus 12 C. In polytunnels temperature dropped to minus 7 C, so today I started covering my pots and boxes in greenhouse. Fields are covered with thin layer of snow, but it gives some protection and I hope that plants will alive.
The pot which I brought in belongs to new taxa described by Turkish botanists. Botanically this publication is real rubbish, but some plants most likely belong to taxa which must be separated from C. chrysanthus. The plant on pictures was named as subsp. kesercioglui, although was collected by me in some distance from locus classicus. and several features in original description looks incorrect.

[YT]

  What a fascinating chrysanthus relative, Janis
How many years do we have to wait until this living gems will be put on your bulb list?

[Martin Baxendale]

Superb, Janis!

[Janis Ruksans]

What a fascinating chrysanthus relative, Janis
How many years do we have to wait until this living gems will be put on your bulb list?

I never collect large numbers. From this last one yellow (kesercioglui) I collected only one corm (it was out of flowers and collected as ordinar chrysanthus only for sample from locality) and now I have 5 plants, another corm (now I have 3) of most likely the same taxa I got from David Stephens who got it from Norman Stevens (he travelled in Turkey many years ago) - both were collected not far one from other, so I cross-pollinated them and now I have one pot with seedlings. I don't remember how many of this other plant I have. Seedlings must come out true. Will see how great will be splitting when they will start blooming. The flower size in both samples are smaller than traditionally in chrysanthus. So I suppose that it may be could appear for wider distribution after 2-3 years, if all will go normally.

[Cyril L]

The plant on pictures was named as subsp. kesercioglui, although was collected by me in some distance from locus classicus. and several features in original description looks incorrect.

Janis, another stunning crocus with black anthers.  Hope the seedlings some true.

Crocus chrysanthus 'Sunspot' flowering now is such a contrast by comparison.  I wonder whether if you cross the two, you might end up with a C. chrisanthus with black stigma and anthers!

[Janis Ruksans]

Dear Cyril, Thank you for advice. I tried this cros, unfortunately they both are different genetically and I got no one seed.
Unfortunately I lost my first stock of SUNSPOT. I suppose I got it infected with something like Fusarium or something else and it died in second season. Then I baught new stock - and it turned virus infected (source was the same). You can see flower from infected plant on the first picture. Liking so much this beauty I replaced it out of Crocus greenhouse to quarantine and self-pollinated it. Surprisingly, but I got a lot of seeds. Seedlings started to bloom last spring and here you can see variability, but only 2 were with black stigma (it is first blooming and still I have some hundred seedlings which were too small for flowering. It is the first flowering, so flowers were quite small and I hope they will improve.

But further story on next entry.