Crocus October 2015

[YT]

Crocus karduchorum, JJA 364.302, from October 2009 seed list.

[Maggi Young]

Dear Janis,
How sad we are to hear of the passing of your beautiful  collie, Ginger.  She had a good long life so perhaps you will feel able in time to give another dog such a good life with you.

Your break with Guna in Italy came at a good time.  From all these wonderful crocus photos we can see that you will be kept very busy and, we hope, only think on happy memories.

[Janis Ruksans]

Many thanks for nice words! I'm afraid that I will have no more dogs - not easy to find so clever as was my Cherry (my first colly) and later Ginger.
Today all the day was passed in greenhouse. Now downlouded pictures - 540 shots done. When I will have time to sort them out and label - don't know but will try to show you step by step autumn beauties. Quite many still didn't start here. Many was gone during absence (at least first largest flowers). This mass blooming allways bring me some depression - how to menage all this. Today maid herbariums for 3 supposedly new species and pressed a lot of their flowers as haven't time to make measurements just now.
In attachment only 1/3 - 1/2 of autumn crocuses blooming just now.

[YT]

What a paradise, Janis

[ruben]

Sorry to hear the sad news you lost a big friend Janis! She can look back at a beautiful life.

Very nice pictures you showed. I especially like niveus blue PElo 014, tournefortii MS 1093 and laevigatus PELO 006. Hope those will come available one day 

movely Crocus kardochorum YT!

Crocus mathewii, showed a few times but one of my favorite autumn flowering crocus
Crocus goulimyi 'Agia Sofia' - a striped goulimyi found by Melvyn Jope
Crocus pallasii C435 (from Crocus group 2014)from Honaz Dag
Crocus speciosus 'Cloudy sky'

[Janis Ruksans]

Excellent karduchorum YT! Superb form. One of Archibalds gatherings blooms with me now, too, but it has yellowish stigmatic branches, all others finished blooming long ago.
I selected some pictures from today to show for our forumists - even for those who now prefer Facebook's Bulborum for their entries.
First three pictures show you variability of Crocus vallicola. All those three individuals were collected near Artvin in Turkey.
After that two from Turkish autumn "biflorus" - C. nerimaniae and C. wattiorum - both with black anthers but very different flower shape.

[Yann]

Agia Sofia form is   

[Janis Ruksans]

Here some of pallasii group
I start with Crocus asumaniae - note the position where split stigma - always between anthers. Very rarely I observed splitting at tip of anthers, but it is not constant. The same corm another season made stigma splitting below tips of anthers.
Quite similar but geographically very distant and with stigma almost always splitting well over tips of anthers is C. kofudagensis. It was collected twice - before millennium by Jim Person from Gothenburg BG who named it "white pallasii" and some years ago by me. Seeing good features to separate it from both pallasii and asumaniae I decided to give it species status. It is doubted by Ibrahim who didn't find it in locality, but it is very constant and last autumn I again spotted it in wild, too.
To compare with traditional "pallasii" follows two gatherings - one from Samos, another from Tuzla Beli in Turkey. Most likely different species but at present I label them as pallasii
The last in this entry - Crocus gilanicus. Very strange species from Caspian region in Iran. With me it has two waves of blooming. Early forms are small and almost invariably white with more rounded petals. When those ends blooming, after some pause, comes second wave (most likely other corms) with lilac and larger flowers on longer flower tube. That you can see here. I only this year got gilanicus collected in Iran last spring, but it didn't bloom with me yet. All my other stocks I got from Gothenburg and other growers. C. gilanicus easy hybridise with autranii, although geographically are very distant.

[Yann]

Crocus biflorus melantherus from Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

In this entry some "cocktail"
Will start with Greece -  Crocus goulimyi 'Agia Sofia'- opened only today
and another picture of C. goulimyi 'Pink Wonder' - now with open flowers
Then two Spanish beauties - C. serotinus (type species), and C. clusii - both easy separable by corm tunics.
And as last Crocus hermoneus from Mt. Hermon in Israel

[Janis Ruksans]

Now blooms around half of C. melantherus acquisitions - another  "biflorus" blooming in autumn with black colour in anthers (around 50% of individuals observed in wild)
Cretan C. oreocreticus was grown from seeds collected by Marcus Harvey from Australia (hope your health improved, Marcus) on Crete over Cave of Zeus
This C. pamphylicus was collected during my second visit to Turkey
Few days ago I showed C. pumilus (another Cretan endemic) with yellow bud - today it opened and shows second flower coming up
Very unusual blue C. laevigatus I got from Jim Archibald as collected at Metohi. Where it is I don't know. Stock was not in good health, I lost it in two years, but one corm alive and that you can see here.

[Janis Ruksans]

Few more of speciosus group - the best form of Crocus ibrahimii. Not all of them has this dark ring in throat of flower, but it in any case this species is easy separable from all other speciosus
Crocus sakariensis was found by Ibrahim, too and he kindly showed me its locality - the lowest altitude where crocuses from speciosus group are growing
Crocus archibaldiorum comes from Iran - W part of Caspian sea S border
The last two are Crocus mathewii - the best form - named 'Brian Mathew' and 'Dream Dancer'

[Janis Ruksans]

The last entry for today.
At first Crocus dilekyarensis from Dilek Yar in W Turkey - very beautiful and special crocus
Then two pictures of Crocus dispathaceus - not so dark as shown by Osman, but easy identifiable by narrow flower segments and stigma enclosed by curved anthers
This C. kotschyanus leucopharynx I got from "Udo" (Dirk). Its seedlings split in typical kotschyanus and in leucopharynx.
And as last - multipetalled Crocus macedonicus

[Janis Ruksans]

Not a good picture but shows the splitting in seedlings of C. kotshyanus leucopharynx

[Yann]

Janis what you've explained about gilanicus is exactly what's happening, the earlier bloomers show rounded petals. I've another pots just spreading above the soil and even the buds are elongated. The earlier ones not. What's the reason of this phenomenon?