Muscari ... and some relatives 2009

[Oron Peri]

Gote,
I think this is a normal form of M. azureum in flower, quite open bell shaped, probably for this reason it was better known in the past as Hyacinthus azureus, and even two years ago i have seen bulbs still sold under this name at the flower market in Amsterdam.

[gote]

Thank you Oron,
I got a feeling of hyacinthus and remembered the old name when I saw the picture. I found an old picture of mine and they were more cylindrical. This is a better form in my taste.
Göte

[Yuri Pirogov]

It is M. azureum I have. Quite different with Luc's species.

[gote]

Yuri's type is the one I used to have only lighter in the colour but I assume Yuri's  picture is on the dark side.
Göte

[Tony Willis]

the muscari are starting to flower.Most of mine are unidentified and I have them as sp.

Muscari aucheri
Muscari commutatum
two Muscari neglectum

then four sp.

[Sinchets]

Muscari botryoides on old dunes near the Black Sea coast.

[Oron Peri]

Tony, fantastic plants, in particular M. aucheri.
I think your 2ed photo is M. neglectum and not comutatum. [it has white teeth].
Photos 121, 130 looks like M. anatolicum. [with prominant white teeth]

[Tony Willis]

Oron

thanks for your comments,the Muscari aucheri is a nice one,not at its best as I have neglected my muscari collection until recently and I think you must be correct about my second picture.

However Muscari anatolicum is not in the Flora of Turkey and the fourth picture looks just the same as the third just a slightly smaller plant.

I know there has been much renaming much of which is very confusing. I have many more 'sp' to flower so will keep you busy identifying them

[Ezeiza]

Tony:

        Muscari in cultivation is a hell of a name confusion. I have been following this thread and thinking of asking Sinchets and the other members fortunate enough to have a species growing wild in his whereabouts to collect seed for distribution. The only way to start putting some order is to start from fresh wild undisputed material.

        Would this be possible, Sinchets?

[Tony Willis]

Ezeiza

I have a large collection all of known provenance from wild seed. It has been looked at by two experts both of whom disagreed with each other on some of the identifications. One then said it was pretty boring as none of them were the 'new' species. It seems every location has been given new species status on a par with crocus and narcissus.

[Oron Peri]

Tony:

        Muscari in cultivation is a hell of a name confusion. I have been following this thread and thinking of asking Sinchets and the other members fortunate enough to have a species growing wild in his whereabouts to collect seed for distribution. The only way to start putting some order is to start from fresh wild undisputed material.

        Would this be possible, Sinchets?

Alberto,
I must agree with you 100%, what you have just said is relevant to many other species as well,
95% of my collection is from wild origins and well documented. I think that if a collection such as this is not well documented then it does not have a botanical value and could be considered as a garden plant and in the case that the species would become extinct in the wild, it would not be replaceable.

[Sinchets]

Ezeiza- yes of course it is possible. There are 8 species of Muscari in Bulgaria- though some of the names are not accepted as separate species elsewhere in the plant world. I agree that if everybody is growing plants and using ids based on only a few wild collections, then this makes it hard to identify slight variations of a species from other areas.
Tony -your Muscari certainly are not boring- maybe some botanists need to stop pigeonholing plants into certain species and accept they are a continuum of a species with a wide distribution. A Chihuahua is not  different species of dog to a Doberman just because there are differences in size and colour. Apologies for not being a splitter and not having a vested interest in naming plant species to advance my career.

[ashley]

Muscari 'Jenny Robinson' (syn. 'Baby's breath'), from Cyprus so considered to be a selection of neglectum although it looks more like armeniacum.

M. latifolium, seeds around here but is never a nuisance.

[Sinchets]

Ashley- does Muscari armeniacum grow in Cyprus? As you say it would make more sense if it was a pale form of what can be a quite pale blue species, rather than a pale form of what is a rather dark flowered species.

[ashley]

As far as I know it doesn't Simon.