Colchicum 2010

[krisderaeymaeker]

It looks like it never going to happen this year but finally there are some Colchicums who nearly flowering.
The first two are Colchicum hungaricum 'Velebit Star' ,favourite by many of us as we can see on our forum
The other is luteum 'Vahsh' .   

[Hristo]

Colchicum biebersteinii ( syn. Colchicum bulbocodioides ) growing on a south facing slope in the central Danubian Plain.

[Herminarik]

Hallo Hristo, the trip for searching Colchicum hungaricum (growing in the nature in southern Hungary) was our first one in this year. We read about this one locality with white "form" of C. hungaricum in the Bulletin of Prague’s AGS last year. To tell the true, we were very wondering to see this species in the original habitat, where botanist Mr. Janka has this Colchicum described. The locality is in the protected area and to find the plants on the hill (between the rocks) is very very difficult. The administrators from the near-by National Park organise three times in the year the field-trips and without their help we could not find anything. As regards the introduction of this "form" of Colchicum hungaricum in the cultivation – we have in plan to ask for a few seeds our friends from NP. Duna-Drava this year. PS: The plants pictured here below are from last year and we received one or two corms from Mr. Norman Stevens cca 7-8 years ago as C. doerfleri (which is practically a synonym of C. hungaricum). Igor & Pavlina.

[Hristo]

Hallo Igor & Pavlina,
Thanks for that information, C.doerfleri is listed for SE Bulgria, we assumed one of the Bulgarian colchicums must be hugaricum but did not know which. In Bulgaria C.doerfleri has the synonym C.bertoloni

[krisderaeymaeker]

Colchicum biebersteinii ( syn. Colchicum bulbocodioides ) growing on a south facing slope in the central Danubian Plain.

Very nice plant Chris! And a name I did'nt heard that much before. 

[Lesley Cox]

My first colchicum for the year is out today. I think it is C. byzantinum and it's a full two months earlier than last year when it didn't start until April. Must have been the good rain we had a couple of weeks ago. This probably means autumn isn't too far away even though we've been having a heat wave for the last 10 days. Last night at midnight the temp was still 24C. Not much sleep.

[Hristo]

Thanks for looking Chris!

[Pauli]

Hello,

here the greek form of C. hungaricum, sometimes called doerfleri.

Sorry for the bad picture, but you can see, that it is deeply colored!

[Hristo]

Hi Herbert,
Great to see a picture of doerfleri, did you notice if the leaves have hairy margins, they appear to have them in your photo. Hoping to see this species in SW Bulgaria where it sneaks accross the border from Greece.

[Pauli]

Hi Hristo,

you are right, the margins are witish from silky hairs!

[fermi de Sousa]

The autumn species are starting here in the Southern Hemisphere!
This is Colchicum cilicium


and again in the morning light!


cheers
fermi

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Looking great Fermi !!
This also means our Spring is on it's way !! 

[LucS]

A colchicum not featured before (I think) is Colchicum mirzovae. This is apparently a rather rare endemic of Armenia. The flowers are wide open, bluish white with usually back turned tips of petals.

[LucS]

A form of Colchicum (?)kesselringii with bigger flowers than what we usually see, with cultivar name "Snow of Highland". Looks very different in shape too.

[hadacekf]

Colchicum doerfleri is closely related to C. hungaricum