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Cr.nerimaniae cancellatus ssp.mazziaricus and the white form from this ssp. caspius, i think, this is the species with the longest flowering time, 5-6 weeks and to 8 flowers from one large bulb is possibly cartwrightianus 'Albus', a native form medius Bignone, large flowers, set seeds, but seldom divide medius Millesimo, later and smaller flowers, not seed, good divide veneris and Cr.longiflorus from Nebrodi Range, Sicily
As last I'm showing picture of Crocus which is supposed to be hybrid between hadriaticus and cartwrightianus and named by it's breeder as PURPLE HEART. It was offered by Paul Christian as Dutch selection from Crocus niveus seedlings, but it is not true. Really it was selected by Antoine Hoog, who wrote me, that this marvellous plant appeared between his seedlings of Crocus hadriaticus, original stock of which he got from Holland under wrong name as niveus, but really it turned to be hadriaticus. As seeds were collected from open pollinated plants, pollen parent actually isn't known, but seem to be cartwrightianus.Hope next week will be more sunny.Janis
Viruses are great problem. This autumn I picked out several pots with Crocus serotinus, goulimyi Mani White, pulchellus albus and few others marked as "V" (virus). There are no other way than to destroy stock as soon as possible.I have Crocus caspius from several sources, one of stocks is nicely purest white, others with bluish flowers. I agree, that it is one of the best and longest blooming species - single fault - leaves soon overtops flowers, but beauty of this species well compensates this minus.All my stock of 'Millesimo' turned virus infected and I destroyed it completely. Plants from mnt. Bignone nicely blooms and well set seeds. My stock is very small, so I can't judge at present how fast it is in splitting.Janis
Quote from: Janis Ruksans on October 24, 2010, 07:52:00 PMViruses are great problem. This autumn I picked out several pots with Crocus serotinus, goulimyi Mani White, pulchellus albus and few others marked as "V" (virus). There are no other way than to destroy stock as soon as possible.I have Crocus caspius from several sources, one of stocks is nicely purest white, others with bluish flowers. I agree, that it is one of the best and longest blooming species - single fault - leaves soon overtops flowers, but beauty of this species well compensates this minus.All my stock of 'Millesimo' turned virus infected and I destroyed it completely. Plants from mnt. Bignone nicely blooms and well set seeds. My stock is very small, so I can't judge at present how fast it is in splitting.JanisJanis, when I read in old Soviet literature that the smallest offsets from infected tulip bulbs, as a rule, are not succeptible to virus. I started my experiments testing this method. It proved to be effective, but not for the all tulip varieties. After that I started to test it with crocus. According to my tests, again, it is effective, but not for all species. I remember 5 years ago I received very nice crocus niveus pale lilac form, which turned out to be totally virused. As usual, I distroy and trash all infected corms, but this form of niveus was so nice that I decided to recover my stock by this method. I selected around 7 smallest corm-bills from its large bulbs and placed them in quarantine area. The following year 4 out of 7 didn't show the symptoms of leaf mosaic. I was pleased with the results, but decided to test them for two more years and put the plants under the stress as well to make sure that they are really healthy. But I didn't see any symtoms of virus on those specimens later. Now I proudly grow this nice crocus niveus from virus free. I think this method is worth testing from your side as well, especially for very rare species, which are virus infected and there is no other source to get helthy stock of them.
