Crocus March 2018

[kris]

Janis your pink crocus is really unique!!

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis thank you for your reply ,I would like to go and see C. novicii but also wonder if my legs will no longer manage it! I have not seen the write up of C. tomoricus.

To complicate the matter here is a picture of a similar crocus growing to the one I have shown growing with C. scardicus, there were several of them. The C. veluchensis were growing about 500 metres away on a separate dryer hillside quite different from the C. scardicus which were in snowmelt water.

The plant on this picture resembles albino scardicus. Scardicus grow together with veluchensis, too. At blooming time it really is in very wet soil, sometimes overflooded, but with melting of snow soil dries out. I collected mine scardicus some time after blooming and I found it on completely dry soil between low shrubs of Calluna(?). In the same time it was blooming in some gullies where still some snow persist. C. veluchensis was on same slopes. At locality visited by me both were not very densely growing but quite often together as you can see on attached picture. On second picture Henrik Zetterlund picturing scardicus, walking is Kurt Vickery (UK).

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis thank you for your reply ,I would like to go and see C. novicii but also wonder if my legs will no longer manage it! I have not seen the write up of C. tomoricus.

Crocus tomoricus is interesting plant. It was regarded as veluchensis synonym by Brian Mathew and I didn't find any data about it when I worked on my book and never saw it, so I followed Mathew's opinion. But going a little deeper relating C. veluchensis group where certainly several species are hidden, I started to doubt - was Brian right in this aspect. So for me would be very interesting to see at least a pair of living plants. On internet I found following information:
"Tomorrit National Park is probably the most fascinating area when it comes to flora, as it hosts several steno-endemic species. Endemic species are those that grow only in Albania, and steno-endemic are found only in restricted areas of Albania. For example, crocus (Crocus tomoricus) and astragalus (Astragalus autranii) grow only on these mountains. A great Italian botanist Antonio Baldacci has collected and described them more than a century ago and only recently they have been rediscovered by the Albanian colleagues."
Now I got original description of C. tomoricus (it is in Latin), quite detailed, but at present I found only that stigma in C. tomoricus must be white, but that put under question status of Greek veluchensis populations where all plants has white stigma. Is it tomoricus? If so - then tomoricus is not so narrow endemic and enters Greece, too. Some my correspondents suppose that plants in Greece could be hybrids between veluchensis and tomoricus, but then it must be very old, well established hybrid reproducing itself without splitting. Such plants can be described as new species. Decision without comparing with authentic C. tomoricus is impossible.

[Tony Willis]

The plant on this picture resembles albino scardicus.

Janis my first thought was that it was an albino scardicus but on examining the new leaves they were broad with a white stripe so not scardicus.
A couple of pictures from the 2016 trip

[Janis Ruksans]

New name for crocus
Yesterday I finished labeling of my pictures from last week, so I will start to put them on Forum, but at very start about new crocus name published in last International Rock Gardener ( see http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2018Mar291522354177IRG100.pdf )

The change of well established name is the thing which gardeners hater very much, but slowly new names got their place in communication, in published papers etc. because always there are well supported reason for such corrections. There is well known Crocus which for very long time was grown and distributed under name Crocus pestalozzae. It was known in two forms - white (quite rarely grown and something difficult in cultivation) and lilac - regarded as forma or variety violaceus. Up to last the lilac form was unknown in nature. It was Ibrahim Sozen who found it growing in Yalova province of Turkey and Turkish botanists published it as subsp. violaceus. As it was completely isolated and distant from localities where white form (regarded as type for C. pestalozzae) is growing and following nowadays attitude to subspecies status I rise it to species level as Crocus violaceus. All was OK up to last January when I got e-mail from Rafael Govaert, who is manager of Kew Checklist of Selected Plant Families (see: http://wcsp.science.kew.org/prepareChecklist.do;jsessionid=A70066AF819CE931D1D356CF15CA3716.kppapp05-wcsp?checklist=selected_families%40%40091010420180601604 ), who, checking old books found that name Crocus violaceus was already used in 1771, so according to International Code of Botanical Nomenclature its using by me was illegal, so Crocus violaceus need new name. I decided to rename it according province name where it is growing in nature as Crocus yalovensis.

[Janis Ruksans]

As I already noted, yesterday I finished labeling of pictures from last week (may be 10 days). Now I selected those for showing on Forum. It turned that at present more than 30 entries must follow (according rule of 5 pictures per entry) and resizing of them takes time, too. So I will show them in alphabetical order with some comments, not more than 2 pictures per sample, but mostly only one. So in some entries will be some very similar (when will came line for chrysanthus samples). Although Crocus blooming season goes to end, some still are only coming out. Season really was very strange - both in sequence of blooming, in colours - many had very atypical shade. And now I can count losses, too. The number was not very high - as average. Mostly from fungal infection, because regardless of very careful checking no one bulb mite was found nor by me, nor in laboratory. Most painful was with C. wattiorum where from 6 large pots corms in 4 died completely, seem that they were frozen in spring night frosts as vegetation started all of them. We had several nights with minus 8 C in greenhouse and wattiorum is plant from low altitudes at Mediterranean coast. But such things is difficult to predict, avoid. So I will start with
White form of Crocus abantensis - in bud slightly bluish (you can see in some of earlier entries), but when opens is pure white
Crocus adamii 14ARM-040 Arteni - it is extremely variable - here some forms from Mt. Arteni in Armenia
Crocus aerius JJJL-010 - always was between my favourites, this year blooms quite late.
Crocus alatavicus 12KZ-063 - one of surprises of this season - extremely long blooming, usually the first to start, this season it paused for some time, but after bloomed very abundantly
Crocus alexandri x chrysanthus Falakro - natural hybrid from Mt. Falakro in Greek Macedonia

[Janis Ruksans]

Now I'm starting with two pictures of white form of Crocus antalyensioides
Then very interesting yellow-blue form of it most likely is hybrid with flavus or mouradii (flavus subsp. dissectus)
Then Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus from locus classicus, known from very small area.
And as last at this moment - Crocus atrospermus - the first species known having black seeds - so that name.

[Janis Ruksans]

This form was labeled as C. atticus, although is growing in Republic of Macedonia (or North Macedonia - actually I don't know how would be correctly to name its homeland now.
Crocus balansae from Samos Island was very bright this spring, I think more orange than ever before.
Crocus baytopiorum  surprised visitors from the first day, I think there was no one who didn't ask about colour of this wonder and I told how every spring, when I was growing it outside I went with trembling heart to my Crocus field looking - is my treasure alive? And it could be seen from far distance - yes it is, so special is its colour.
And in this entry I'm starting some of unidentified samples of so named "biflorus group" crocuses - this one comes from Mazikiran gec. in Turkey. Note how variable they are in the one locality. The field where it grows is very flat, stony with sparse vegetation where you can find Iris danfordiae and this nice crocus. I never was there in blooming time and finding of those few plants takes long walking in this grazed, semi-desert looking country.

[Janis Ruksans]

JRRK-007 was collected just E of Refahye in Turkey, something resembles C. malatyensis but certainly isn't it, see the outside base of flower segments. Could be new species.
JRRK-016 was collected S of Kelkit, most likely is new species
And last two pictures represent true, typical Crocus biflorus growing along Italy and only in Italy. One is my own gathering, another of HKEP.

[Janis Ruksans]

In this entry at first two pictures of one of my seedlings from early years when I was still growing Dutch cultivars, named as C. chrysanthus varieties. Sometimes I collected their seeds, but not registered parent plant, they were sawn as mix and few were selected. From those only very few still are grown, but the best is this one - named 'Snow Crystal'. The last 3 flowers are C. carpetanus - various forms (origin of samples at picture).

[Janis Ruksans]

Now will follow 4 entries with superficially very similar crocuses. They all at present are regarded as "Crocus chrysanthus". Of course European and Turkish samples belongs to different species and in general are easy separable because most of Europeans has stigmas well overtopping anthers, whilst most of Turkish has stigmas hidden between anthers, not overtopping them. But as you will see from attached pictures, it is not always so, there are some exceptions in both parts. Most interesting is that visually so similar plants according DNA researches are very different and belongs even to different series or groups of species, so flower colour is not the feature which can be regarded for forming related member.
There will be only few comments, and I'm starting with European samples. Of course I have much more, but not all were pictured this spring.

[Janis Ruksans]

Still C. chrysanthus sensu latissimo!
The plant from Bozdag is partly-albino - found one such between traditionally deep yellow blooming.

[Janis Ruksans]

Still some Turkish. JJVV-023 - creamy yellow form found between millions of purre  bright yellow on large yaila below Kaan gec.

[Janis Ruksans]

The last of chrysanthus. TULA-023 - some plants has white stigma. Is it permanent or only some seasonal joke, I don't know.
Goldmine is another extremely old my selection from open pollinated seedlings, when I grew only Dutch cultivars. It often formed semi-double flowers but for that is needed large size corms. As in last seasons care of my crocuses was not the best, I had smaller corms and flowers were with traditional 6 segments. This spring again come one with 8 segments, although from top size corms can be even 12 flower segments.

[Janis Ruksans]

To give you some rest from "yellow fewer" before next one starts, some different colours
type Crocus cvijicii as it is found at locus classicus in Republic of Macedonia - far from bright yellow from Geek province Macedonia
And last are 3 pictures of Crocus duncanii - every one can compare flower shape of C. duncanii with that of C. carpetanus showed few entries before. I suppose that no one will doubt that both are different crocuses regardless of Kerndorff's tries to put this under doubt.