New Crocus Year 2020

[Jupiter]

Some autumn flowering Crocus flowering now in Adelaide, South Australia.

1. C. goulimyi


2. C. xantholaimos x pulchellus


3. C. speciosus f. albus


4. C. goulimyi 'Mani White'


5. C. longiflorus

[Tomte]

Crocus vernus (the former C. albiflorus) found today on hummocky meadows near Mittenwald (Zugspitz area). Mostly white, but some were very colourful. I often wonder about these forms, because the colouration is not always regular. Is it possible that these are the result of a viral infection?
Anyway, they are very beautiful..

[Janis Ruksans]

New crocus species - Crocus assymetricus was recently published in Phytotaxa : https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.438.2.1
It is very unusual, making roots only on one side of corm, so corm is not symetrical, since its name. Attached pictures are from oiriginal publication in Phytotaxa and Facebook by Mehmet Çelik.

[Janis Ruksans]

The most strange season. Several crocuses already opened seed pods and I collected their seeds and they are already sawn although outside all still are white in thin cover of snow. The first species ripening seeds was Crocus pumilus from Crete - seeds are tiny as tiny are flowers. The other species where seeds are already harvested are hakkariensis, cappadocicus, hatayensis, caspius, some kotschyanus samples.
I already harvested few "chrysanthus" samples where leaves became yellow - corms looks very good, slightly increased in size, but I would like more. But some species suffered in this crazy winter. The worst are hittiticus - earlier growing as weed, michelsonii and may be some others, not yet checked - all made new corms healthy but smaller than planted. All of them lost roots.I suppose that winter with unfrozen soil maid conditions too wet. Frost makes soil physiologically "dry" as well as draught. All of them were treated by fungicide for safety using tea sieves.

[Janis Ruksans]

Is it possible that these are the result of a viral infection?

Plants looks healthy, I don't think that it is virus infection. I have similar from Jura mountains and they are perfect - no other symptoms, so I think it is normal irregularity in striping.

[Yann]

The most strange season. Several crocuses already opened seed pods and I collected their seeds and they are already sawn although outside all still are white in thin cover of snow. The first species ripening seeds was Crocus pumilus from Crete - seeds are tiny as tiny are flowers. The other species where seeds are already harvested are hakkariensis, cappadocicus, hatayensis, caspius, some kotschyanus samples.
I already harvested few "chrysanthus" samples where leaves became yellow - corms looks very good, slightly increased in size, but I would like more. But some species suffered in this crazy winter. The worst are hittiticus - earlier growing as weed, michelsonii and may be some others, not yet checked - all made new corms healthy but smaller than planted. All of them lost roots.I suppose that winter with unfrozen soil maid conditions too wet. Frost makes soil physiologically "dry" as well as draught. All of them were treated by fungicide for safety using tea sieves.

Indeed the season is very strange i also collected most of the bulbous seeds, even tulips in the garden have their first pods dry and opened 

[Jupiter]

Some more Autumn blooming crocus from the Southern Hemisphere right now. How do the flat earthers explain this!?

Crocus goulimyi "Mani White"
C. goulimyi var. leucantha (I think)
C. ligusticus (syn. medius)
C. ligusticus
C. hadriaticus

[Janis Ruksans]

Some more Autumn blooming crocus from the Southern Hemisphere right now. How do the flat earthers explain this!?

Excellent! Nice to see autumn bloomers now.

[Janis Ruksans]

In 2018 during our trip to Iran my friend Dimitri Zubov found 1 crocus corm with annulate tunics on some slope. Regardless of very long searching in vicinity no one other crocus was found and Dima presented this corm to me. This spring it bloomed for the first time and turned quite recently published C. kurdistanicus (as subsp. of danfordiae) by Iranian botanists. In original paper lacked a lot of important details so the first flower I used for dissecting and description of details. Later I checked its leaves, too. Turned that it is well separable from danfordiae by several features. It raised two more flowers which I self-pollinated without great hope to get any seed as many crocuses are completely self-sterile (I never got any seed from C. almehensis - another yellow crocus from Iran - because all my plants represent single clone). For my great surprise with C. kurdistanicus this worked and very good seed pod is formed.

[todd boland]

The crocus season is just starting in Newfoundland.  Here is Crocus chrysanthus 'Dorothy'

[todd boland]

Crocus chrysanthus 'Fusco-tinctus'

[Janis Ruksans]

Those are leaves of Crocus balansae Orange Monarch bought last autumn in Holland. All plants turned heavy virus infected as you can see on this photo. Pity, but most of crocuses coming from Dutch nurseries in last years are virus infected, only huge amounts of fertilizers hides infection symptoms on Dutch fields. Such plants must be destroyed as soon as possible. Of course, sometimes I'm finding infected plants in my collection, too. This year I destroyed pot with very nice stock of C. scepusinensis, grown with me for around 40 years, and another pot with Crocus heuffelianus and few others received during last 2-3 years.

[todd boland]

A few more crocus opening in Newfoundland

[todd boland]

Various pink(ish) forms of Crocus tommasinianus that spontaneously arose in my garden.

[todd boland]

A few spontaneous Crocus vernus hybrids popping up in my lawn