Crocus November 2006

[mark smyth]

David mine are in a cold glasshouse that gets no sun from mid November until maybe late February. Up to last week they were lined up in bread baskets outside.

[Anthony Darby]

Crumbs Mark . You're worse off than me. At least my greenhouse gets a couple of hours of sun in the winter.

[tonyg]

When Ian came to visit 2 weeks ago this pot of Crocus laevigatus was looking good.  This dark form is a very good doer both in pots and in the open garden.  Flowering in the cool days of winter it puts on a good show for several weeks.  There are more buds rising beneath the canopy!

As some of you know I don't go in for naming every nice form that I see but perhaps this one is worthy of a name.  It has ticks in all the right boxes!

[mark smyth]

it definitely does. My potful has been to the Ulster Group lecture on the 11th, Dublin Group weekend on the 17-19th and to a daff group lecture on the 26th where everyone liked the colour combination

[David Nicholson]

Tony-Exquisite springs to mind.

[ian mcenery]

Nice to see such a lovely group Tony

Here I think is a chip of the old block - in other words a bit from you - which has been going for weeks now

[Paul T]

Great pics everyone!!

So nice to see Crocus at this time of year..... a long way off at the moment until I'll see them in person again.  February at the earliest!!

The Crocus laevigatus with the dark outer petals is most impressive.  Reminds me a little of the darkness of things like C. minimus.  Must be lovely.  That species is definitely one of my favourites, but at this stage I only have one form of it (although one seed of the alba form from Thomas has germinated this spring, somewhat out of season but has so far survived for a couple of months so there is hope!  ).  It is always interesting to see that there are so many other varieties of them, whereas here in Aus we basically have just a single form that does the rounds only.

Again, great pics everyone.  Thanks for sharing.

[Thomas Huber]

Welcome back, Paul!

Tony's dark laevigatus was one of the seeds I offered you in July.
Surely next year I will have some more for you!!!

[Lesley Cox]

Welcome back from me too Paul, though I see your crocus reply is no 11 so I'm missing something somewhere. Tim told me he thought you might be working for someone somewhere. I hope that's so, and your long absence hasn't all been due to illness. Take care.

[hadacekf]

Normally we have each day fog, but if the sun shines flowers Tony's Crocus laevigatus marvellously.
First picture in fog
Second in sunshine.

[Paul T]

Welcome back, Paul!

Tony's dark laevigatus was one of the seeds I offered you in July.
Surely next year I will have some more for you!!!

Thomas,

Hmmmm.... did I realise that it was a dark form?  I definitely took you up on the alba as it was different.  I didn't realise that there were that many different forms of them.... only just reached that realisation.  Definitely silly of me if I didn't take you up on that offer.  Or are you telling me that i did get some of that seed from you and so I have seed down of it already?

[Kees Jan]

Hello everyone,

Here are some Crocus pictures from Parnon range in the eastern Peloponnese, photographed on October 7th this year. This population was above Agia Vasileios in the southern part of the Parnon. It seems to be Crocus hadriaticus ssp. parnonicus, although the great majority of the plants (perhaps 90%) had white rather than pale lilac flowers, although some of these may have been very pale lilac. None of the crocuses in this population had a yellow throat, which seems to rule out ssp. hadriaticus. Crocus hadriaticus ssp. parnassicus from further north (Mount Parnassos) also has white flowers with a completely white throat. A few years ago I explored the northern part of the Parnon range and also found Cr. hadriaticus, all the plants there had white flowers although I don't know the colour of the troat.

Does anone know if all Crocus hadriaticus in the Parnon range should be regarded as ssp. parnonicus? Or is it possible that there are more subspecies in the area? Is ssp. parnonicus always lilac or is it quite normal to find white forms of this subspecies?

Kees Jan van Zwienen, Netherlands

[Maggi Young]

Welcome, Kees, it is good to have you join us in this forum.  It seems a long time since you visited us here in Aberdeen... well, it IS a long time since then! 
These questions about the crocus you have seen will soon bring good opinions from the "Croconuts, I think!


Hans, you had me thinking hard about Kerkyra.. not a name I am familiar with... but then I looked more closely at the name of your photo file, shown under the picture and, as I am very fond of saying "There's often a clue" !!!!

[tonyg]

Hello Kees - Great to see pictures of crocus in their natural habitat.  Thanks for posting them.
Brian Mathew defined the lilac flowered plants from Mt Parnon area as ssp parnonicus describing them as being without the yellow zone in the throat.  He writes (in Botanika Chronika 13, 2000) that the yellow throated lilac forms found in the Taigetos may possibly be the result of introgression from ssp parnonicus.  The yellow throated lilac forms are known as ssp hadriaticus fma lilacinus.  In the article he notes that this ssp requires further investigation in the field to determine its distribution and degree of variation.  You saw it at the type locality.

PS Any more pics of crocus in the wild will be welcome

[Paul T]

Kess and Hans,

Thank you both for the pics.  Great stuff!!