Crocus October, 2018

[Janis Ruksans]

Thank You for Your information! Possibly I kept my white Crocus banaticus too wet in summer, indeed.
As I never grew Crocus xantholaimos, the seedling shown is most likely one of the larger group of Cr. speciosus growing nearby, which is very uniform and most likely the variety īArtabirī. What puzzled me are the white filaments I didnīt notice with my other Crocus speciosus.

C. speciosus sensu lato has whitish to light or pale yellow filaments. I suppose that Artabir is derived from C. armeniensis.

[Mariette]

Sorry, Iīm no specialist regarding crocus, nor a keen collector. The few varieties of Crocus speciosus I grow show anthers and filaments as yellow as those You presented yesterday. Itīs great that You share Your vast knowledge here! Many thanks!

[olegKon]

Crocus specious. Not at all rare but a real delight this very warm October.

[sokol]

Yes Oleg, they are nice, easy and spread around in the garden.

Some flowers also from my garden.

Crocus pulchellus from Ossa village




Crocus speciosus Artabir


Crocus Zephyr

[sokol]

Crocus banaticus


Crocus hadriaticus


Crocus hadriaticus ex Enos, Kefallonia


pale Crocus macedonicus from Ossa village


Crocus melantherus

[sokol]

Last ones for today:

Crocus mathewii




Crocus goulimy leucanthus

[Mariette]

Sorry, Iīm no specialist regarding crocus, nor a keen collector. The few varieties of Crocus speciosus I grow show anthers and filaments as yellow as those You presented yesterday. Itīs great that You share Your vast knowledge here! Many thanks!

Well, I have to correct myself - on the Crocus speciosus varieties I grow the pollen made the filaments look yellow, but they are exactly as Janis described. The odd thing is that my seedling shows no pollen, so that anthers + filaments appear white.

Beautiful pictures, sokol, especially Cr. mathewii and hadriaticus with their big contrasting base!

[pehe]

Yes Oleg, they are nice, easy and spread around in the garden.

Some flowers also from my garden.

Stefan, your Crocus are really nice too!

[pehe]

Crocus goulimyi grows happily in my rock garden.
The white one bought as Crocus caspius.
Crocus longiflorus from Malta
Crocus pulchellus from Chios

[pehe]

Crocus robertianus
Crocus sativus liked the hot summer
Crocus ochroleucus
Crocus banaticus with dark stigma
Crocus nudiflorus with white stigma

[sokol]

Nice Crocus Poul, especially Crocus banaticus and nudiflorus with These interesting stigma.

I still miss many Crocus here, especially gilanicus and vallicola.

Crocus laevigatus is starting now and there are many others that hopefully come soon:

from Eretria, Evia


from Pendeli, Attiki




from Ikaria

[pehe]

Nice Crocus Poul, especially Crocus banaticus and nudiflorus with These interesting stigma.

I still miss many Crocus here, especially gilanicus and vallicola.

Thanks Stefan,
Seedlings from banaticus have many interesting variations.
There is less variation in nudiflorus, and here the variation is mostly seen in the stigma. It could be more or less branched as (shown below) or rarely white instead of the normal orange colour.

It is also a strange season here. Vallicola is flowering over a long period, starting months ago, and still one pot is not flowering yet. On the other hand Crocus ochroleucus is flowering now. Normally they flower much later - often in the end of November.

Poul

[Janis Ruksans]

Now started quiet season.Yesterday I planted few newcomers for my bulb collection. The most welcome was Gymnospermium smirnowii - extremely rare in nature - known only from very few spots in Lagodechi national park in Georgia. Another was Fritillaria dagana - species which I had and grew very successfully for many years and then suddenly all stock was lost. Those plants came from Moscow, University BG. Now left only watering of pots and their cleaning from died flowers. Hot week made crocus blooming much shorter than usually and so every day few hours goes for checking of names, pollinating, taking off old flowers and still for few herbariums. On the first picture you can see my greenhouse filled with pots and if something new will come before winter will start - there left place only on floor where some boxes with some stocks of Paeonia, Symplocarpus, Cyclamen kusnetzovii etc. already are deposited. On the 2nd picture my wife pictured how I'm taking off old flowers. It is very important for Crocuses, but especially for Colchicums and cyclamens. Flower remnants very easy catch Penicillium or Fusarium nivale infection and it goes down up to corms and tubers, killing them. When weather is dry as now - no problems, but tomorrow will return cool and moist days. So must be very careful.
Returning to plants blooming now - the first picture is hybrid between C. boryi and tournefortii. I got it from Dirk, but I don't know, is it hybridized by him or comes from Crete where both occasionally hybridises.
Next are two plants from Middle East - typical Crocus aleppicus, this sample comes from Syria and was collected there when it was peaceful country.
The last picture shows plant regarded as "aleppicus" for long time before Oron noted that it is very different not only by morphology, but mostly just by ecology and habitat - growing near sea instead of highlands. I wanted to publish it and to name after Oron, when got information that it is prepared for publishing by Kerndorff, Pasche and ? - for not to make interrelations between HK and me more worse (is it at all still possible?), I decided to step back. So I hope that it will receive new name already this year.

[Janis Ruksans]

I just got new article about Crocus phylogeny: "Phylogeny of the saffron-crocus species group, Crocus series Crocus (Iridaceae)" published in "Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 127, October 2018, Pages 891-897". This research finally ended all speculations about ancient parentage of Crocus sativus, confirming that it derived from single species - Crocus cartwrightianus and no other species are involved in its parentage.
For me most joyful was that this research confirmed that mine species Crocus kofudagensis is really different and even quite distant from closest relative - Crocus assumaniae. It really enjoyed me, because I based its description only on morphology and some my correspondents put its status under doubt. The cited research confirmed that I was right. It is not difficult to grow, but if you want multiply it from seeds - hand pollination and isolation from other related species is obligatory as it easy hybridises with other species and seedlings shows enormous variability.
But in this entry I want to show you enormous(!) variability of Crocus cartwrightianus. All plants pictured here were originally collected in spring, out of flowers on Island of Naxos (Greece). Of course my favourite from those is the plant with yellowish flowers (at start of blooming)- the first picture. Unfortunately yellowish colour soon fades to white. On last picture two colour forms - both from Naxos.

[sokol]

Very nice forms from Naxos, Janis. The tepals are uniformly narrower than with my seed raised plants from Siros and Evia.