Crocus January - 2009

[BULBISSIME]

Nice plants Oron,
you should come to see them in the wild, in Corsica !
I'm waiting for you 

[Oron Peri]

Thank you all,
And Fred thanks for the invitation, I'll probably get there some time,
By the way have you noticed different forms in C. minimus in the wild?

Ibrahim, great photos of beautiful species, thank you!!

[BULBISSIME]

Oron,
I never went to Corsica in early spring to find Crocus 
Only in autumn for Arum, Acis, Cyclamen,.....
I have to go,...one time !

[Janis Ruksans]

By the way have you noticed different forms in C. minimus in the wild?

I suppose that C. minimus offered by Dutch are not really minimus. In seventies I tried to name it cutting shoots but I didn't remember my decision then and can't to find now papers. Of course it was flowering too early for minimus. Really minimus is the last spring crocus blooming in garden. True one I got from Pruhonice (then Czechoslovakia). They grew it from wild collected seeds and it was quite variable in color but they all started blooming only when last flower of other taxa wilted.
In Latvia Crocuses usually are blooming in April. 30th of Aprill normally is the last day of Crocus blooming outside. Crocus minimus never started before 3rd of May, in 1980 it started only 16th of May. Unfortunately I lost this stock in very hard winter before I built up my first greenhouse. Although I just noted that Crocuses here blooms in March-Aprill but minimus in May, few seasons ago we had so cold spring that Crocuses were in bloom even 20th of May, but I hadn't minimus then. Last daffodil blooms in that spring I cutted from field 24th of June.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

Some minimus in my collection starting with Dutch
Janis

[Martin Baxendale]

Some minimus in my collection starting with Dutch
Janis

The minimus from Sardinia has beautiful markings on the outside.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

What a great show we've been having !!! Wonderful pix everyone !!  

It's bitterly cold but very sunny out here, so here are some of mine :

1) Crocus antalyensis (from the renowned Hubi stable   ) - small flower but very attractive !
2) Crocus aff. sieberi - pjc 215 - obtained from B & R Wallis
3) Same

[David Nicholson]

Lovely Luc, that Hubi stable takes some beating

[Gerry Webster]

Janis - I have to agree with Martin, the plant from Sardinia is exceptionally handsome.
I presume C. minimus 'Bavella' - introduced by Alan Edwards -  is the real thing.

[art600]

Janis - I have to agree with Martin, the plant from Sardinia is exceptionally handsome.
I presume C. minimus 'Bavella' - introduced by Alan Edwards -  is the real thing.

Gerry

Do you mean 'Simply the Best'     I would agree

[tonyg]

Finally got a pic of the two biflorus types side by side.  On the left the biflorus ssp nubigena and on the right biflorus ssp isauricus or at least that is what I received it as.  Quite similar but of a different hue.  Both lovely though.  This form of ssp nubigena is one that I have been growing for 12 years, not the plant that came from Hubi.  ... The second pic is the form of biflorus ssp nubigena that Thomas grows.
Next a form of Crocus biflorus ssp alexandrii.  This has purple stippled outer petals very similar to a form of ssp biflorus that Ibrahim showed.  However ssp alexandrii has a white throat while ssp biflorus has a yellow throat.
Crocus adanensis - easy in a pot.  Has anyone tried it outside?
Crocus kerndorffiorum x leichtlinii.  I was given a single corm a few years ago.  (Mind you it crossed the atlantic twice before it reached me!)  It seems a vigorous thing, now I have two flowering size corms and the promise of a third.  If anyone grows either of the parents I would make a swap.  Oddly they are two of my 'missing' taxa.

[art600]

Tony

Looking back to your original photograph of isauricus (reply 298), I notice it had black anthers like melantherus and crewei.  Cannot remember a reference to isauricus having black anthers - is this something special?  

[tonyg]

Tony  Looking back to your original photograph of isauricus (reply 298), I notice it had black anthers like melantherus and crewei.  Cannot remember a reference to isauricus having black anthers - is this something special?  

Yes and No!  It is special, 'cos its very beautiful.  But I think that it is probably misnamed.  I had it from TH, he had it from JS, don't know how many other homes it has had.  And we come back to the "difficult to name unless you know which mountain it grew on" problem.  OR there may be more variation in ssp isauricus than is recorded.  Sorry this does not really help but the biflorus group are fiendishly difficult for the armchair amateur like me!

[tonyg]

On the subject of things not fitting the prescribed pattern.  Here is a spring flowering form of Crocus biflorus ssp melantherus.  This one is true to name, it came as seed collected by Steve Keeble in Greece.

[art600]

On the subject of things not fitting the prescribed pattern.  Here is a spring flowering form of Crocus biflorus ssp melantherus.  This one is true to name, it came as seed collected by Steve Keeble in Greece.

Could this be a disjunct population of crewei