Crocus February- 2017

[Maggi Young]

....... as last the darkest toned Crocus korolkowii ever seen by me. Although I never succeed artificially crossing korolkowii with michelsonii - it resembles hybrid, although both species at time of gathering seeds were placed in different greenhouses.

My goodness, what a colour that is!  Always something surprising among these beautiful crocus .

[johnw]

Crocus x chrysanthus 'Phoebe' in today's brilliant & warm sunshine.

john

[tonyg]

Another surprise seedling flowered today.  Pictured below are the two yellow flowered plants that have arisen from seed raised home collections of Crocus sieberi sl. 
Interestingly both can be traced back to the same collection made by Steve and Val Keeble in 2000 which was labelled Crocus sieberi ??ssp sublimis.

First picture is of the plant shown here recently, this time pictured in sunshine.  This one is raised from seed collected from the original collection.

Second and third pictures are plants one further generation removed from the original collection. 

Both were collected and sown in 2013.  To my eye the yellow influence comes from Crocus cvijicii, both the shade of yellow and the flower shape suggest this.

Hoping they show hybrid vigour and increase quickly 

[Janis Ruksans]

Identification of Greek "sieberi" are not very difficult
Leaves are without ribs (if ribs present - C. georgei)
Corm tunics coarse with long neck - atticus
                    coarse without neck   - athous
Corm tunics finely reticulate, throat glabrous -  nivalis
                                                 throat hairy   -  sublimis

[tonyg]

Identification of Greek "sieberi" are not very difficult
Leaves are without ribs (if ribs present - C. georgei)
Corm tunics coarse with long neck - atticus
                    coarse without neck   - athous
Corm tunics finely reticulate, throat glabrous -  nivalis
                                                 throat hairy   -  sublimis

Thanks Janis.  I am at the hospital now but on a dark rainy day the flowers are closed anyway.  I have brought the two yellow plants and some Crocus cvijicii with me in the car!!  I hope to repeat the cross using the purple flowered plants in pots with the yellow ..... we will see in a few years 

I will do some checks at home on other plants of sieberi sl. when I  can. Sadly I do not have the original plants from the KKK collection any more but maybe in photos I will be able to check some details.

[WimB]

On grey and overcast days they can be very nice too...

Crocus chrysanthus 'Charmer'
Crocus chrysanthus 'Rusne'
and Crocus tommasinianus 'Claret'

[Philip Walker]

C. corsicus

[tonyg]

More on the conundrum of variability vs hybridity in the complex that was Crocus sieberi sl.

First a shot of another seed raising of Crocus sieberi sieberi that includes a form that has flowers coloured as Crocus sublimis Tricolor.  I have several seed raisings like this and while a seed mix-up might have happened once I am as certain as I can be that the repeated nature of this outcome reflects the ability of Crocus sieberi to hybridise with other plants now viewed as separate species rather than subspecies.

Second shot another suspicious variation.  The purple colour of one is typical of Crocus sieberi while the very nice one with markings at the petal tips has colouring more typical in sublimis/atticus.

Third picture, a riotous mixture of forms of Crocus sieberi from a single home produced accession.  None of my original sieberi plants have lilac purple ground colour, all are white with dark markings.  Janis has shown picture of wild plant with lilac ground colour so perhaps this colour break in my seedlings reflects the natural variability ... perhaps.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

My goodness, what a colour that is!  Always something surprising among these beautiful crocus .

I quite agree, Maggi - pure magic Janis is showing here ! 

[Janis Ruksans]

Passed very cold night. Outside temperature dropped to minus 9 C, in greenhouse "only" minus 6. Although morning part of day was sunny, temperature not raised much in greenhouse - maximum was only +4 a nd flowers still remained closed. So still only buds.
On first - view of one of crocus beds.
Then Crocus cyprius light form, in background more traditionally coloured individual
And as last two pictures of another "cyprian" - C. hartmannianus grown from wild collected seeds - first blooming on the 4th year after sawing.

[Janis Ruksans]

In this entry only two crocuses
The first is C. reinhardii, collected last spring at another locality. The label at this stock was C. speciosus aff. as it was out of flowers at collecting time and I had notes about speciosus in this region.
Next one most likely C. reinhardii, too,. collected between 2 earlier known localities but at lower altitude and unusual colouring - another new-comer from 2016 collected without leaves but with very hard corm tunics.
And as last one more beauty of C. gembosii.

[WimB]

This one seems colourless on the outside...

Crocus tommasinianus 'Bobbo'

[Janis Ruksans]

Again outside snowing, but temperature is +1 C. For around half an hour was sun shining through clouds and I used moment for some pictures. Some were shown before in buds, but now at least half open flowers can be observed.
Crocus alerxandri from Greece
Then very strange and most likely new species from W Turkey - no one description match with it.
Now Crocus brickellii showing its beauty and 2 main features separating it from danfordiae - length of stigmatic branches and large yellow throat.
And last 2 in this entry Crocus crewei Hot Chocolate

[Janis Ruksans]

In this entry I'm starting with Crocus fauseri, then follow
Unusual form of Crocus henrikii - if it would not be collected in wild - my opinion would be that it is hybrid. May be it really is hybrid, but another corm collected at same locality was C. mediotauricus. So it could be another parent, or occasionally C. henrikii has black anthers. Not a great surprise as C. mawii, concinnus and gembosii growing not very far occasionally has black colour in anthers.
Crocus lyciotauricus I would be regarding as C. brickellii if not the size of flowers - at least twice as large as all species from C. danfordiae group to which belongs C. brickellii.
Those are first flowers of C. muglaensis which opened today, others still are in buds.
And last is at this moment labeled as nubigena, but could be different, still not checked in details.

[Janis Ruksans]

And last entry today
The first is C. pseudonubigena
Then 2 pictures of C. salurdagensis
After that C. sozenii
and as last C. stevensii