Crocus October 2019

[Janis Ruksans]

Repotting finished! Still left to plant some seedlings and other bulbs which had no place in greenhouse for pots. Yesterday all the day watered something around 9000 pots. It tooks just 8 hours.
But crocuses still are blooming.
Here white Crocus pamphylicus grown from seeds collected near Fersin, S Turkey
and 2 pictures of seedling from Crocus dispathaceus from Icel. May be hybrid, but one of best this autumn.

[Janis Ruksans]

A lot of crocuses are blooming and every day pictured, but preparing pictures for Forum takes time so only few I can prepare every day.
Now in this entry 4 different seedlings of Crocus cartwrightianus cv. 'Purple Eye'
and possibly new (?) species from speciosus group, but at present regarded as C. armeniensis from Vahagni. I wanted to research it together with Zhirair this autumn, but barbaric killing of him cancelled all travel plans...

[Janis Ruksans]

Nicely blooms Crocus nerimaniae and C. wattiorum. Each flower was carefully hand pollinated. After 3 generations I successfully rised virus free C. nerimaniae - almost 100% virus infected in the wild + population almost destroyed by wild boars.
And another almost certainly new species from cancellatus group from near Gulnar in S Turkey - so delicate sand small - only around half of traditional cancellatus size, and very uniform.

[Janis Ruksans]

In greenhouse almost finished but in garden now at top is occasional hybrid selected by me from open pollinated seeds of Crocus ilgazensis. The pollen parent almost certainly was C. pulchellus. Extremely floriferous and vigorous hybrid. I named it 'Fantasy' but not long ago some spring blooming cultivar in Holland was named as 'Fantasy' too, so I renamed mine as 'Autumn Fantasy'.

[StevenS]

Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find both C. hermoneus ILOP-011 and C. dispathaceus Icel in full bloom.Especially C. hermoneus is such an elegant beauty, it might not be 'garden worthy' by classic standards but I find it so graceful it should best be admired up close and personal.

I was very happy to be able to obtain both from Janis this year and I self-pollinated both in the hope of some good seed to be harvested next year.

[Hannelore]

Crocus sativus

[Yann]

Crocus goulimyi, from Mr Vickery seeds. Stacked photos with my 120mm eq. olympus lens.

[Janis Ruksans]

Just a week ago I finished replanting of my bulbs and yesterday finished registering of all samples grown by me. This year I didn't include my own selections from wild stocks and they appear only under original gathering number, so total number of grown samples decreased and now is equal to "only" 4508 samples, from those crocuses are represented by 1586 samples. Now I have some time to work with pictures and in this entry different stocks of Iranian Crocus archibaldiorum from various localities.

[Janis Ruksans]

Some more crocuses blooming now
The first two are from new species (must be published soon, not by me) from Israel, growing at very low altitudes and earlier regarded as C. aleppicus.
Another new species from Armenia, found by Zhirair Basmajyan, killed this summer. Shortly before his killing we had telephone conversation and he wanted to show me exactly where this crocus is growing wild (I planed trip to Armenia). Now I have only some plants, collected by him. It is well separable from C. armeniensis by cream coloured anthers, much deeper yellow throat and stigmatic branches mostly positioned below or at tips of anthers, only rarely surpassing them.
On the fourth picture is Crocus armeniensis from locus classicus and as last
Crocus autranii - true wild form, collected shortly ago in Abchasia.

[Janis Ruksans]

I had very bad crop of C. banaticus this season. Corms were small and poorly looking and I expected no one flower and was very surprised when two pots suddenly were covered with flowers. Here picture from sample collected in forest near Mukachevo, W Ukraine.
Next 3 pictures are of Crocus bolensis - first two from locus classicus (the second is almost albino) and the third from Kuyucak Yaila.
The last is Crocus boryi from Greece.

[Janis Ruksans]

One of the most gracious species from Crocus speciosus group is C. brachyphilus. I even named it as C. speciosus subsp. elegans, but later it was raised to species level and name changed (not by me).
Crocus cambessedesii seem to be the autumn crocus with smallest flowers. It was not good grower last season, but some corms bloomed regardless of very small size.
And last two pictures shows very gracious crocus from cancellatus group, according number collected somewhere near Gulnar in S Turkey, but there is some fault with number and I must to search in elder planting books when this mistake happened to be sure about origin. This season anthers are not developed.

[Janis Ruksans]

Crocus cartwrightianus is ancient ancestor of famous saffron crocus C. sativus. Here variability of Cretan form of C. cartwrightianus  - var. cretensis, showing its large stigma.
On last picture Crocus caspius - white and light lilac form.

[Janis Ruksans]

Several species already finished blooming but many send out new and new flowers and some even still didn't started blooming. Here some last flowers pictured few days ago.
The first pair is of Crocus dispathaceus from Icel and the 2nd - very unusual seedling - could be hybrid.
Crocus gilanicus flowers are very delicate, here last flowers from sample collected in Iran.
Pure white C. goulimyi individual collected not far from Monemvasia. Usually Crocus goulimyi has quite long leaves at blooming time, this autumn they started development much later than usually and it is easy to pick out died flowers - usually leaves bother this.
And as last in this entry - F-2 seedling from hybrid between C. hadriaticus and C. sativus cashmerianusd - very spectacular.

[Janis Ruksans]

Iranian Crocus hakkariensis yesterday was cleaned from last flowers, this picture is made few days ago.
I wrote in previous entry that leaf development this autumn is delayed in Crocus goulimyi, but the same is with Crocus hatayensis, too.
From C. speciosus group started blooming one of the latest - Crocus hellenicus from South population near Varnakovo
but one of the best "speciosus" is C. ibrahimii - quite variable - on this picture the very best form.
And the last is mine C. kofudagensis - note the white style splitting into 3 orange branches well over top of anthers.

[Yann]

Well what to say except you grow many treasures one more beautiful than the other