Crocus: November 2010

[Tony Willis]

Arthur thats good but you never mentioned you gave it me in the first place! Shows the benefits of sharing things around.

[krisderaeymaeker]

Arthur thats good but you never mentioned you gave it me in the first place! Shows the benefits of sharing things around.

I agree Tony !
The best way to keep rare and difficult plants alive is to spread them as much as possible under good and reliable friends...

[Luc Gilgemyn]

A real gem Art !!

[Gerry Webster]

Crocus  laevigatus

From a Ray Cobb collection (CRO1012). The seed was a gift from Alan Edwards.

Seedlings are quite variable in size & colour:

0932CRO - White, the most frequent form;

0925CRO-Y - Larger flowers.  When the flower first opens the exteriors are quite a strong yellow but this fades quickly;
 
0944CRO-L - The least frequent form. The flowers are slightly smaller, pale lilac & white.

Edit:

Tony Willis has kindly provided me with some information about this form received from Ray Cobb himself. The original plants were not collected by Ray but came from Ronald Ginns & CRO1012 is not, as I thought, a collection number; moreover,  it should be cr1012.

[Tony Willis]

a couple of Crocus wattiorum.These came from only 150m so very hot and dry area.

The first is quite typical and when they open in warmth they recurve completely in a not very attractive way.

The second is much paler (perhaps not obvious in the pictures) and has much reduced anthers(new sub species!!). These have produced pollen which I have used to pollinate the other flowers.

[Janis Ruksans]

Here is very cloudy and extremely wet weather. Rain, rain and rain... Even pools are out of borders and flooding meadows.
Crocus flowers die without opening even once. So no pictures can be placed. For next weekend is offered quick drop of temperatures till minus 20 C or even lower. Could be beat all frost records for November here. It mean that next week I will start covering of pots in greenhouses and no more pictures will be available. Pity, as some stocks of melantherus, aleppicus, hyemalis and few others will stay with flowerbuds for winter and will not be seen in their beauty. Every day I'm plucking of wilted and died buds to prevent botrytis and penicillium rots, so easy starting on died flowers in such weather. Although Colchicums and Sternbergias are even more susceptible. Serious problems with my Onco-irises, some cyclamens, Pelargonium endlischerianum, too.

But I had more time for other observations. I noted that all stocks grown by me as Crocus imperatii (earlier subsp. imperatii) now have quite long leaves (up to 5 cm), but all stocks grown as C. suaveolens (earlier subsp. suaveolens of C. imperatii) still are without leaves. Only one stock bought from P&M company as suaveolens is with same leaves as imperatii, so I now changed its label. I got several stocks of both collected by Thomas and those repeats the same. There are not even tips of shoots visible in pots labeled as suaveolens and long leaves on pots collected as imperatii. Would like to know your observations about those two crocuses.
Janis

[Lars S]

Here in Stockholm it´s also very wet and cool and next week temperatures will start to drop below zero 

Unfortunately I don´t have any of the crocuses you ask about Janis, but it I am a bit surprised that my one year old seedlings of crocus alatavicus have come up and are about two cm long by now. Is that nomal with this crocus ?

As usual crocus baytopiorum are up with their noses in the pot.

[ashley]

I don't have C. suaveolens but C. imperatii has been in leaf here for a month or so & buds are even visible.   C. baytopiorum has recently emerged too, both mature plants and seedlings.  

[Melvyn Jope]

Very overcast and dark today but at least Crocus tournefortii stays open.

[I.S.]

  But on my side, the weather is perfect. 10 c more hot than normal average temperature. Two days ago I had chance research around for crocuses. I was very lucky for this time. I made lots of C. pallasii pics but there was no one C. pulchellus in this locations while I have seen lots of C. pulchellus last years.
  It seems this pallasii is very rich in variation, not only in color, shape and size of flowers also look very different than each other. Of course not all but I will post a small part of them here..

[I.S.]

  I don't want to make you boring but still I will post some more from another locations. There were so nice forms so I could not decide wich one should be at top

[Janis Ruksans]

Here in Stockholm it´s also very wet and cool and next week temperatures will start to drop below zero  

Unfortunately I don´t have any of the crocuses you ask about Janis, but it I am a bit surprised that my one year old seedlings of crocus alatavicus have come up and are about two cm long by now. Is that nomal with this crocus ?

As usual crocus baytopiorum are up with their noses in the pot.

It isn't normal with alatavicus, but can to happen and with my alatavicus seedling box of this autumn is the same. I was a little shocked seeing so abundant germination just now. A little nervous - how they will overwinter. Not allways I have so good seed crop of this species as this year (result of a lot of handpollination) because it blooms so early that even bees from hive placed in greenhouse still are sleeping. So I will cover them with glasswool sheets when frost will start. In nature alatavicus often come out from frosen soil, so corms are quite hardy, but I don't know how it is with first year seedlings coming out in autumn and still not forming new corm. Will hope...
Those crocuses which are wintering with leaves germinated very well and now has nice green shoots. For those it is very common and no problems in greenhouse.
The noses are out in baytopiorum, michelsonii, alatavicus and may be some others. As I showed earlier - vitellinus from Lebanon is in full flowers.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

  But on my side, the weather is perfect. 10 c more hot than normal average temperature. Two days ago I had chance research around for crocuses. I was very lucky for this time. I made lots of C. pallasii pics but there was no one C. pulchellus in this locations while I have seen lots of C. pulchellus last years.
  It seems this pallasii is very rich in variation, not only in color, shape and size of flowers also look very different than each other. Of course not all but I will post a small part of them here..

Excellent display of variability of pallasii! Many thanks, Ibrahim.
Janis

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wonderful selection Ibrahim !
You could never bore us with your pix from nature !! 

[Tony Willis]

Lovely pictures Ibrahim,good to see the variation. Is Uskup near Kırklareli on the European side