Crocus October, 2018

[Janis Ruksans]

I have some cartwrightianus from Evia and there are vary variable width of flower segments.
From the article cited in former entry for me didn't came clear - are the plants from Crete regarded as +/- different or conspecific. I'm not geneticist and my knowledge for reading of phylogenetic trees is very primitive. But I understood that Crocus cartwrightianus genetically is very variable. So in my collection all samples still will remain labeled as "Crocus cartwrightianus". But here I'm showing some variability of Crocus cartwrightianus on Crete. For not return to this species again, I want to note, that cv. of cartwrightianus 'Marcel', 'Michel' and especially 'Anabelle' most likely are hybrids because their flowers more or less close in evenings, whilst pure cartwrightianus stay open day and night.

[sokol]

Thanks Janis, very interesting to see the variability.

[Janis Ruksans]

Close relative to C. cartwrightianus is C. oreocreticus. I was growing plants from seeds collected on Crete by Marcus Harvey who sent me some hundred seeds collected near Cave of Zeus. All my attempts to find it in wild failed up to last autumn when I finally were on correct spot in correct time. Unfortunately day was very foggy, rainy and was impossible to get good pictures.
Another species of same group but more distant is mine Crocus macedonicus - visually (by flower) practically inseparable from Crocus pallasii (type species from Crimea) but having different chromosome number. Typical C. pallasii has short tunic's neck and is very leafy, macedonicus has very long neck and less numerous leaves. Here pictured plant from locus classicus of C. macedonicus. The last picture shows plant labeled by me as macedonicus, too. It comes from Kumanovo in Northern Macedonia and has long tunic's neck and up to 9 leaves, so I had no doubt about identification, but last research included plants reported from apr. same locality as C. pallasii. That surprises me because Kumanovo isn't very distant from locus classicus of macedonicus. May be some mistake in research or some mix of labels? Mine or researchers of phylogeny? This remain mystery for me.
And the last result of this research is confirming that C. dispathaceus, C. turcicus and C. haussknechtii are really distinct species and must be regarded as such and not as subspecies of C. pallasii. This didn't exclude that under those names more species are hidden and research in this direction is continued by Turkish botanists.

[sokol]

Thanks Janis for telling the results of this research. For me it is also doubtful that the Greek and Macedonian plants should be different species. However a mistake could also be happened with the Greek plants and all are just Crocus pallasii.

Crocus macedonicus ex Ossa






Crocus thomasii


Crocus longiflorus

[sokol]

Variety in Crocus laevigatus

ex CEH612


ex Eretria, Evia


anywhere from Evia, big flowers


ex Ikaria


ex Neapoli, Malvasia peninsula

[Yann]

a 4 years old bulb obtain from the seedex, Crocus goulimyi

[Janis Ruksans]

Thanks Janis for telling the results of this research. For me it is also doubtful that the Greek and Macedonian plants should be different species. However a mistake could also be happened with the Greek plants and all are just Crocus pallasii.

Mistake with plants from Greece is impossible - to Gatersleben for DNA were sent plants directly from wild. Really I was surprised that they were not described and published already before me because it was for long well known that they has different diploid chromosome number - pallasii has 2n=14 but macedonicus - 2n=16. This alone shows that there are two different species included.
Regarding plants from N. Macedonia I'm not so sure, because I observed only cultivated stock got from Gothenburg and originally collected near Kumanovo long ago (1988), so some mislabeling could occur during cultivation and due two "Macedonia". Randelovich et al. (2007) found that plants from other point but in surroundings of the same Kumanovo has 2n=14, so they must be pallasii. I don't know just which stock from Kumanovo was used for DNA. Really it could be quite logical as North Macedonia is separated from Greek Macedonia by high mountain ridges, so both species are well isolated geographically. I will check more carefully morphology of mine Kumanovo plants, may be I misidentified them. In any case in Greece starting from Vertisko Ridge in North in direction to S of Larissa were observed only C. macedonicus, so it is possible that appearing of C. macedonicus in Northern Macedonia could be wrong statement and must be corrected in my book.

[Janis Ruksans]

Tonight temperature dropped to +1 C only and during day is not promised more than +10. High temperatures of last week raised quick shortening of flower life and many hours every day were used for cleaning of wilted flowers. Now beds looks much less floriferous and there are much less to do in greenhouse. So I can work on pictures.
Returning to Crocus pallasii I here again enter one picture of "pallasii" from Turkey in Europe. Unfortunately this population was not included in research about species from saffron crocus group. The observed population is very spectacular and I hope that Turkish botanists who continue researching of C. pallasii s. l. will solve problems with taxonomy of this crocus.
On next picture is another "pallasii" from Chios. That one I really regard as different one and I think this question will be solved by Greek researchers who works now on Crocuses from E Aegean Islands.
Next 2 pictures shows Crocus pumilus from Crete - the first is from Omalos Plain - very typical pumilus with very small flowers both in wild and in cultivation.
The second in this pair comes from near vil. Psychro on Lasithi plain. In wild it was the same as on Omalos with very small flowers. But in cultivation it really shocked me, forming incredibly large blooms - twice as large as in wild. On wild were collected some 20 flowers and all are conserved in my herbarium, so size always can be checked. There were some very special colour forms, but by size all were very tiny and uniform. On picture form with yellowish shaded flowers.
So I even started to doubt about correctness of labels or identification as in the first moment flowers looked even larger than flowers of C. laevigatus. C. laevigatus this year started blooming later and don't look very "happy" with me. Later flower size rise up and overpassed size of pumilus from Psychro. The other feature - odour of flowers remained typical for all samples from Crete (scentless) and from Peloponnesus (fragrant). So I put side by side (the last picture) 3 flowers - from left pumilus from Omalos, in middle pumilus from Lasithi (cultivated) and as last laevigatus from Peloponnesus.

[Janis Ruksans]

In this entry are 3 autumn blooming species with annulate corm tunics and with black colour in anthers (not always).
The first is Crocus nerimaniae from Turkey, yesterday I tuck off the last flower of it, but all blooms were carefully hand pollinated to get seeds of this very beautiful species.
Then Crocus melantherus from Peloponnesus. It didn't blooms well this season. Flowers comes out irregularly and remain with short tube, although roots when I checked one such pot are perfect and well developed. So only one picture was made. It has yellow or more or less black colour in anthers, but in general it is very good grower here.
The last two pictures represent Crocus wattiorum with very special shape of fully open flowers- now is culmination of its flowering and again flowers are hand-pollinated. This species surprised me. I had two stocks of it - one I got from Erich Pasche (HKEP-9548) and another came from P.& P. Watt, after whom is named this species. They are growing at very S of Turkey on rocks of Mediterranean W from Antalya and were not very happy in enormously wet and cold summer of 2017. No one corm (and were planted at least 60 corms) of stock HKEP-9548 came up this spring (actually some formed weak leaves and shoots) and all turned rotten at harvesting timer. In the same time corms from PPW stock grew well and although were not of top size (as I would like) now perfectly blooms with me (were potted 64 corms). What is the reason of so different fate of two stocks pots of which were placed side by side in the greenhouse, planted in the same day and got the same watering, fertilizing etc. - remains mystery for me. Both were grown with me for at least 10 years (PPW stock for 12 years) and both started with 3 corms from each.

[Janis Ruksans]

The last entry this morning will show you two species. The first is 3 pictures is of Crocus caspius. It is amazing species with very long blooming. Most interesting is that first always came out white flowers and each next flower from same corm has more and more bluish shaded flower segments.
The fourth picture shows Crocus hellenicus from near Varnakovo. It is most beautiful of C. hellenicus grown by me, but I never saw its blooming in wild. Both my stocks came from other growers (one from UK, another from Gothenburg). By flower it very resembles another beauty from Turkey - Crocus brachiphylus (or C. elegans, as I named it) from N of Akseki.
Crocus from Varnakovo is very different from plants of C. hellenicus growing in N of Greece - at Vicos Canyon. But I didn't see Varnakovo population in wild, so I can't judge about its variability. For comparing here is attached picture of C. hellenicus, pictured on edge of yaila near Vicos Canyon 6 years ago.

[Mariette]

In the meantime, some more specimen of the odd crocus shown on # 72 popped up. The fresh opened flowers show more clearly that anthers and pollen are white, though look somewhat reduced in comparison with my Cr. speciosus and pulchellus.

[Yann]

a new one, Crocus hyemalis on the garden table 

[Janis Ruksans]

Tonight we had first real frost - at sunrise temperature here dropped to minus 1 C. Most of crocuses already finished blooming, but the latest ones are starting to show shoots. Some blooms very long forming up to 6-7 flowers from one shoot coming out one after other. One of the longest blooming "speciosus" crocuses is C. xantholaimos. On the picture anthers already dried and shrivelled, so giving impression that stigmatic branches are overpassing them, although at start of blooming they were level with tips, then stigma grew up slightly overpassing anthers. This is not wild stock, but baught from Antoine Hoog.
Next 2 pictures show Crocus tournefortii from Naxos Island. On Naxos at least 3 autumn blooming crocuses are growing - laevigatus, cartwrightianus (marvellous forms of which I showed shortly before, and this autumn the last came up C. tournefortii). On the 4th picture is tournefortii from Crete - again late bloomer this season.
And the last show's Crocus veneris from Cyprus.

[Janis Ruksans]

Still some "speciosus" left - flowers of those were cleaned off yesterday. At first are typical speciosus - forest species from Georgia and Armenia - on picture plants collected deep in shrubs near church of Gremi, next is albino from forest at Ijevan in Armenia. This was shown before at start of blooming when the colour was distinctly bluish, but now it faded to white.
For comparing - C. armeniensis - from ploughed  open field, never entering shrubs or forest and forming largest flowers between all known to me "speciosus".
The last two here is unidentified "speciosus" fro Turkey. At first from Ak-dag, along road from Elmali to Fethiye - something resembling C. ilgazensis, but growing in SW Turkey, whilst ilgazensis is plant of very North of Turkey.
The last comes from Kütahya - another from Western part of Turkey, but much more to North. It was collected by J. Persson from Gothenburg BG and kindly shared with me.

[Janis Ruksans]

To finish with so large group of "speciosus" crocuses this autumn, in this entry the first three pictures show you 3 different gatherings of Crocus archibaldiorum growing in Iran at SW corner of Caspian Sea, and then C. zubovii - from SE corner. You can easy sea the differences. The last picture is another Iranian "speciosus", but collected between former two - on the remote road where our group stopped to eat large watermelon, bought on roadside. The crocus was found on narrow cattle pass, in brick hard clay, stamped hard by sheep and cow legs. It had very small corms with huge number of cormlets at base.