Crocus september 2015

[Janis Ruksans]

Retirement from nursery allows for me to give more attention to collection and my last two hobbies - bee keeping (now I have 28 hives and harvested around 600 kg of honey) and choir singing.  Our meetings will start in October. But in garden it allows to plant everything much earlier than usually and for me still left only bulbous Irises - reticulatas will finish today and then remains Juno collection - some 200 samples still must be repotted. I'm strongly limiting amount of planted bulbs - for Crocuses it is no more than 4 pots from sample, for reticulata Irises and others - no more than 2 pots from acquisition. All rest goes to Liga's nursery. Hope that she will be successful.
As last for today are Crocus suworovianus and something mysterious crocus named as C. suworovianus forms lilacinus. I got it from Czech friend as collected in E Turkey, but I have my own gathering, too. Is it lilac form of suworovianus or some another species from kotschyanus group - I don't know. Not so easy to check at present situation in E Turkey. As additional picture - some surprise pictured by Liga in her nursery - Deilephila elpenor.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

More and more flowers of Crocus autranii comes out. Another picture of today is Crocus hadriaticus from Parnasos in Greece. Incredibly sweet perfume comes out of its flowers. No more pictures made today - only few herbariums of some most likely new autumn blooming crocuses were prepared. Very hot in greenhouse - today temperature raised up to 37  C. Crocus hadriaticus flowers bent down in such hot.
Janis

[ruben]

Very nice pictures Janis! autranii is such a superb crocus!

Here windy and tons of rain! Difficult to take pictures of crocusses..

[Yann]

autranii is a jewel, lovely photos Janis.

[ruben]

- Crocus cancellatus ssp. mazziaricus
 - Crocus ilgazensis- 4 flower out of one bulb at the same moment!
 - Crocus kotschyanus enjoys the evening sun! This is a very good form because of it forms stolones

[pehe]

- Crocus cancellatus ssp. mazziaricus
 - Crocus ilgazensis- 4 flower out of one bulb at the same moment!
 - Crocus kotschyanus enjoys the evening sun! This is a very good form because of it forms stolones

Nice crocus, Ruben.
I really have to try C. ilgazenesis!

Poul

[pehe]

It is hard to compete with Steve's photo quality and the number of crocus from Janis, but I dare it anyway:

1. Crocus autranii has started flowering while the last flower of C. scharojanii flavus is flopping over
2. C. autranii close up
3. The second set of flowers of Crocus speciosus from Russia

Poul

[Janis Ruksans]

Very good picture of C. autranii, Paul. From where just in Russia are your speciosus?
Crocus gilanicus - first flowers pictured 2 days ago
Janis

[ruben]

Crocus gilanicus isn't a easy one for me! Last year it has got a very good seed setting but the bulb is halved.
What are the best conditions for this one? I grow it next to heuffelianus, herberti, kotschyanus, vallicola, cvijicii (all in open ground) ....

[Janis Ruksans]

Crocus gilanicus isn't a easy one for me! Last year it has got a very good seed setting but the bulb is halved.
What are the best conditions for this one? I grow it next to heuffelianus, herberti, kotschyanus, vallicola, cvijicii (all in open ground) ....

I think that gilanicus need dryer conditions. I keep it in greenhouse all the year round. From this district I periodically lost only caspius - it isn't very hardy, but with gilanicus I had no problems but I didn't try it outside.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

Beautiful day passed - moderately warm and more and more crocuses start and continue blooming. C. suworovianus soon will be at end. I'm afraid that soon will come day when will not be possible to show you all new flowers of day. Again I will start with one of my favourites - Crocus autranii. Crocus autranii in wild is slightly variable in shade, but unfortunately it easy hybridizes (as pollen parent) with Crocus gilanicus. F-1 hybrids are almost inseparable from C. autranii only slightly lighter , but such forms are in wild, too. The single +/- certain feature is something smaller flowers. This hybrid is fertile and second generation seedlings according rules of Mendel split and here you can see such F-2 seedlings - one of them almost repeats C. gilanicus. This hybrid for the first time appear in Gothenburg BG when seedlings of C. gilanicus suddenly formed lilac flowers of C. autranii style.
On next picture Crocus armeniacum from heights near Geghart Monastery in Armenia - from there was described mysterious Crocus geghartii - refound and collected by me with help of Zhirair in 2014.
Another crocus which is close to end of blooming is Crocus cappadocicus. Here very nice whitish form of it.

[Janis Ruksans]

Although something similar in some forms C. vallicola always blooms after C. suworovianus. It is easy separable from the last by long "tail" on tips of flower segments. Here the form from Turkey and on next two pictures - from Russian Caucasus. For those I must thank to Dima from unhappy Ukraine, suffering from Russian aggression and terrorist gangs in Donbass where lives Dima's parents and is located his garden. All his Caucasian and Azerbaijan gatherings left unplanted in autumn 2014 due Russian aggression.
Another 2 pictures are crocuses from speciosus group originally collected in C Turkey.

[Janis Ruksans]

Now 4 pictures collected under name "mazziaricus aff.". The first is from Monastery state on Athos peninsula, collected on slopes of Mnt. Athos (Greece), then two pictures from Samos Island (Greece) and last from Kayseri, Turkey.
The last picture - beautiful form of Crocus puringhiorum, collected by me on Tschatir-dag Yaila in Crimea few monthes before Russian occupation.

[Janis Ruksans]

In this entry some of Crocus cancellatus group from Turkey. The last three pictures of very nice dwarf form. You can judge about its size on last picture. Blooms very abbundantly, although corms allways are very small.

[Janis Ruksans]

In the last entry today - Spanish Crocus nudiflorus
Wild form of Crocus ilgazensis from locus classicus
Then some from Crocus pallasii group - not far from Antalya
And as last today - Crocus scharojanii var. flavus