Crocus Poll - Your top 5

[Tony Willis]

Jim,I think it unlikely that anybody would pick up on a spelling mistake in a post. The reality is that probably three quarters of posts on this and other sites contain spelling errors. This is because most people are amateurs not only at gardening with little botanical knowledge but both typing and computer use. It is also the case as with me that it is nearly fifty years since I studied English grammar and to say it is rusty is an understatement. Better a mis-spelt post than no post at all. Thank goodness for spell check.

A similar comment was made on whether it was acceptable to post a poor photograph,the point being that that was probably better than no picture at all.

[Maggi Young]

Tony's comments echo my own thoughts, Jim.
At times an error may be corrected or commented  upon - particulary for a non-English speaker, in order to assist  them ( and many ask for that to be done) but  it is generally the case that for English speaking forumists, any errors, whether caused by " ignorance or incompetence" ( if I may make so forceful a description) are left lying.... after all, look at the case of you good folks in the USA.... you have a completely different mode of spelling to the UK forumists, and are certainly entitled to that.....if there were to be a grave bias towards English usage, (as in common use by the UK and Irish forumists, for example) then hours would be taken up each day by asking for or imposing changes .... such as "blousy" for your "blowzy", for instance! 

[mark smyth]

Brian says there is almost nothing to distinguish C. scardicus and C. pelistericus except the usually wider and darker leaves of pelistericus. He says there is probably a case for merging the two into scardicus as two subspecies but there is little value in doing it. He says that scardicus is never likely to be commonly cultivated but there are some successful growers in Scotland where the cooler climate suits this Crocus.

Anyway back to the hybrid

The F1 vary very little with their mix of orange purple and bronze. The F2 have most variation including white with dark tips. Shown is 'Ember' that is dirty yellow with dark bronze tipped outers, bases and a hint of brown on the inner tips.

The hybrid was named by Robert Rolfe see AGS Bulletin 68, 2: 228 (2000)

Robert says
The first cross was made in '87. Henrick describes the colour as honey-blackberry with the most exciting being a white one with dark blue tips and bases. In '94 Henrick brough some corms to the UK when he went to the Wesy Yorks AGS conference.

Crocus x gotoburgensis R. Rolf, hybr. nov. an intermediate hybrid between C. scardicus Kasanin and C. pelistericus Pulevic, the leaves without a median stripe and the flowers light orange-yellow with violet-brown staining to the tips of the perianth segments and the perianthe tube: the colour more variable in the second generation, including violet-tinged white forms. Typus: cultivated material ex Goteborg Botanic Garden, exhibited on 6.3.1999 (Wisley)

[Maggi Young]

I do  believe that the Gothenburg Botanic Garden may have named at least one clone of a Crocus x gotoburgensis second generation seedling.  I am not sure that 'Ember' is one of those, or if this cultivar name was given by Robert when the plant was given an RHS joint rock garden plant committee award , made subject to the application of a cultivar name... a criterion often applied when an award is given.

[Gerry Webster]

Brian says there is almost nothing to distinguish C. scardicus and C. pelistericus except the usually wider and darker leaves of pelistericus.

Sorry Mark, a slight misquote:
"Brian says there is almost nothing to distinguish C. scardicus and C. pelistericus except for the flower colour and the usually wider and darker leaves of pelistericus."

[Gerry Webster]

I must be a snob!

I suspect I am too. At any rate I have no desire to grow them. Nor any form of C. speciosus  for that matter.

[mark smyth]

ah, but it wasnt a direct quote and I assumed everyone would know by now they are different colours

[Tony Willis]

The hybrid was named by Robert Rolfe see AGS Bulletin 68, 2: 228 (2000)

I do not think Robert actually named the cross, he just published its description. (how pedantic can you get I ask myself?)

[mark smyth]

I do grow Crocus speciosus but only two cultivars. 'Albus' and 'Ainoaitchisoniiartabircassiopeconqueroroxonion'

[Tony Willis]

'Ainoaitchisoniiartabircassiopeconqueroroxonion'

This must be the longest plant name on record!

[mark smyth]

It's the new cultivar named by me after buying a full collection of named cultivars from a Dutch bulb supplier

[Tony Willis]

Mark I had to laugh given my post 45 above. Now of to watch gardener of the decade.

[Maggi Young]

The hybrid was named by Robert Rolfe see AGS Bulletin 68, 2: 228 (2000)

I do not think Robert actually named the cross, he just published its description. (how pedantic can you get I ask myself?)

YEs, scope for more confusion here!!    When I see "The hybrid was named by xxxxxxx ", I take that to mean that the  person mentioned is the one who "christened" the plant..... that is usually the meaning...........
the confusion arises here because Robert Rolfe writes the reports of Award Plants for the AGS Bulletin and, in this particular case, he is cited as the authority for the name....so in this instance the comment has a certain ambiguity.

 (That is, short reports of plants given awards by the RHS Rock Garden Plant Committee, commonly known as "the Joint Rock Committee" because it has members from the RHS, AGS and SRGC)
So, to the Bulletin 68, No. 2 (200)  page 228.......... where we find that Robert Rolfe wrote the type description..... I will append photos of the report presently.

[Maggi Young]

Sorry for photo quality, I hope it is still readable!
 The report begins:
 Crocus x gotoburgensis R. Rolfe 'Ember' P.C.                                Iridaceae
Shown at Harlow on 6th March 1999

Crocus scardicus was barely known in cultivation until the late 1960s and its close, but quite differently coloured  violet relative C. pelistericus, only described in 1976......

[Jim McKenney]

Tony's comments echo my own thoughts, Jim.


 hours would be taken up each day by asking for or imposing changes .... such as "blousy" for your "blowzy", for instance! 

This is too funny Maggi. In my draft of that post, I had written blousy. But when I used the spell check function in "Post reply", it suggested blowzy. I took this to be one of those differences between usage over there and usage over here and changed it.   

Believe me, I'm definitely of the message-is-more-important-than-the-medium school in these matters. The idea is more important than the way it is expressed. But one of the joys of an international forum is the wide insight it provides into things which we otherwise might not know about. I have huge admiration for those participants whose first language is one other than English, and every time I read their posts I keep asking myself "would I be able to do as well in their language?"

The several posts since my last post have effectively obviated much of the long post I was composing in the interim. But here's something to think about: should Crocus x gotoburgensis be shown to exist in nature, that that would reinforce the view that Crocus scardicus and C. pelistericus are conspecific. And if that view were adopted, the name Crocus x gotoburgensis would become obsolete except perhaps as a horticultural term.

One other thing to keep in mind: formal botanical nomenclature will not help us ("us" being gardeners) with the confusion which is likely to arise once hybrids of the x gotoburgensis sort become more common and more varied. A mongrel swarm is likely to result, and a single name will be woefully inadequate in keeping them straight. Someone needs to start naming and keeping track of these plants on a clonal level, don't you think?

More about the spelling error I "planted" later...