Crocus February 2008

[Gerry Webster]

Anyone have any comments about the petals on C. veluchensis?

I find that multiplication of petals is common on crocus & one of your plants seems to be attempting to multiply - half-way house as it were - again quite common. The other looks a bit unhealthy - virus?

[Maggi Young]

When in doubt, I always check Tony G's Crocus pages , to compare with his healthy pix!
http://www.srgc.org.uk/genera/index.php?log=crocus

[tonyg]

Anyone have any comments about the petals on C. veluchensis?

Usually quick to damn a virused plant my first impression is that this is mechanical damage not virus.  I'm sure you will check closely for other signs of virus (suspicious colour breaks/streaks in the flowers or blotchy leaves) but this looks a bit like damage to the petals prior to opening.  Might be a mollusc or a cutworm although the latter usually make a more comprehensive mess of the flowers.  Taking a second look at the side on view I'm suspicious of those leaves - do I see yellowish patches?  'If in doubt - chuck it out' has become my mantra this season.  I even removed one of my precious Narcissus alpestris today, it was only going to pass on the troubles if I kept it.

[HClase]

Maggie,

Perhaps I exaggerated the contortions - here's the view from inside my subterranean study.  During a blizzard!

[Maggi Young]

Ooh! I see the snow makes its way into the frame too...

I admit I visualised a greater degree of difficulty than appears to be the case here 
Natty arrangement for winter protection and access though... I know you described the set up previously, with shots then from the exterior, as I recall...  and I now see how it all works. 

[Guff]

Heres a flower bud of "Isauricus Spring Beauty", looks to be minimus?

[David Shaw]

I remember Howard's frames from last year. A very ingenious solution but I am glad that we don't have to resort to this.

[David Shaw]

Now that the sun is on the greenhouse I have had another look at this Crocus veluchensis. The edges of each petal are defined by a thin white margine. I don't think that the petals have been chewed but grew with irregular edges and the veining  is much more pronounced than in the 'Crocuspage' images.
I am not sure if it is virused or not but will put it in isolation and see what it does next year.

[HClase]

It's only a lean-to, so snow gets in through the cracks along the top, but seals it at the bottom and sides.  It's one more thing to dig out after a storm too, the weight of snow can crack the glass, and my stock of old window panes is running low.

[Hans J]

here two pics from my Crocus today :

C.spec. Croatia
C. vernus Orjen

[art600]

David

I have noted your problem with some of my veluchensis - cannot all be virus, surely.

[David Shaw]

No, I am not 'sure' that it is virus, hence I am not actually throwing them out.
I bought a bag of five veluchensis; three I put in a pot and two in the garden to see how they did. Later this afternoon the sun came onto the ones in the garden and they have opened up as normal bulbs. I would have thought that if the stock was virused all the bulbs would have shown something. As for growing conditions, the ones in the pot were plunged in sand in the greenhouse. Before Christmas we had a big freeze up that has probably finished off most of my narcissus but did not seem to have any effect on the other plunged crocus. This is the only one to have shown aberation.
Ahh, all part of the fun of gardening.

[Gerry Webster]

Before Christmas we had a big freeze up that has probably finished off most of my narcissus but did not seem to have any effect on the other plunged crocus. This is the only one to have shown aberation.

Temperature shocks can cause multiplication, or partial multiplication, of parts in some animals (e.g. insects). I suspect the same may be true of plants. Hence the partially split petals.

On second thoughts I'm not sure about the significance of the freeze up. If this is a case of partial multiplication, the disturbance to development would presumably have occurred somewhat earlier during the formation of the flower bud. 

[tonyg]

Anyone have any comments about the petals on C. veluchensis?

Good to hear that they may not be virsued - I agree that if the others are ok then this one may just be damaged.  However - the 'veining' that you refer to leads me to another thought .... is it reallly veluchensis?  Did they come cheap from the same place as the cvijicii which turned out to be angustifolius?  If so I'd lay odds this is Crocus vernus.

[I.S.]

  I would like to show some photos of mine from last week. The first one is from my garden. The others are from willd. I am still undecided haw to call. Last year I said c. b. weldenii but. Trade forms made me fall in mistake. I cheked again from crocus pages but I could not find the main distinction. Only the dark color is for alexandrii and white is for weldenii! I could not seen any darker then first one.
  If I fallow the distributions N W Balkans for c. b. weldenii and Sırbia, Bulgaria and Greece for c. b. alexandrii.
So. could I say these are c. b. alexandrii?.