Colchicums autumn 2007

[Maggi Young]

Thanks to you all with reports on your C. 'Waterlily'... now I must wait till ours appear to see if they have some stamens this year.

Mike, no need for anyone to worry about leaves that are too big with the little beauties like C. cupanii, eh?

[mark smyth]

Anthony your cupanii is lacking the pin stripe veins

[mark smyth]

my long petalled tenorii has styles that are only 5mm

Now that we have other Colchicum growers I hope someone can ID this tiny flower. The label is gone or else I forgot to label it. It may be tiny but it's perfectly formed. The stem is 3cm and the closed petals reach 5cm

oh, and the obvious thing is the yellow base to the anthers

[Maggi Young]

Perfect, isn't it? We have a couple of little colchicums which we have had for YEARS and never been able to pin down with a name... now we've given up and just treasure them for the little gems they are... but every now and then we do give it some thought. It is frustrating not to be able to ID some things, no matter what!

[Anthony Darby]

Should it have striped petals Mark? I bought it as cupanii but it could be pusillum?

[mark smyth]

Anthony all my cupanii have yellow throats

[Anthony Darby]

There's more flowers to open this week so I'll try to take a better pic. The yellow anthers are also not like cupanii. I do have other pots of cupanii from other sources, so if it is pusillum that's a bonus.

[Lesley Cox]

It does look very like what Otto has (in Oz) as C. pusillum. I have a little one, not flowered yet. Maybe next autumn.

[Kees Jan]

my long petalled tenorii has styles that are only 5mm

Now that we have other Colchicum growers I hope someone can ID this tiny flower. The label is gone or else I forgot to label it. It may be tiny but it's perfectly formed. The stem is 3cm and the closed petals reach 5cm

oh, and the obvious thing is the yellow base to the anthers

Given the size it could be pusillum or cretense, are the leaves very narrow Mark?? Numerous, very narrow leaves are typical of pusillum and the closely related cretense.

[Kees Jan]

Here is the first of my bulbs labelled Colchicum cupanii.

Since it has wide leaves, clearly visible at flowering time, I think cupanii is still the most likely candidate. Psaridis is very similar but has very different underground bits, which are rhizome-like. The leaves seems to be too wide for pusillum, also pusillum has more leaves. Cupanii has a very large distribution in the wild so quite a bit of variation is likely and I found some unusual forms at Delphi in southern Greece. Am I right in thinking that the anthers are not yellow in your plant and that it is just the pollen that is yellow? If I remember correctly the yellow throat or yellow base of the style is not a constant feature in Greek C. cupanii. I think the stripes in the tepals (veins) are visible, but just far less obvious than in some other cupanii pics.

Pusillum, cretense, psaridis and cupanii are all related and in the same "group", together with C. triphyllum I believe...

[Anthony Darby]

A very full and welcome answer. Thanks Kees. I have several others, including some from Crete and some labelled Colchicum cretense. Is there a photographic (or otherwise) key available?

[mark smyth]

Thanks Kees. I brought bulbs to the Rod Saunders lecture including the white cupanii. Someone there thought it might be something else. I'll take over all photos tomorrow

[Kees Jan]

A very full and welcome answer. Thanks Kees. I have several others, including some from Crete and some labelled Colchicum cretense. Is there a photographic (or otherwise) key available?

I don't know of a good key for this group of small colchicums, if there is one I would be pleased to hear! The problem with Colchicum information is that it is quite scattered in scientific publications.

Colchicum peloponnesiacum, C. stevenii and C. parlatoris are some other species in the "cupanii group" that I did not mention in my previous reply. According to Kit Tan and G. Iatrou in Endemic plants of Greece: The Peloponnese, Greuter (1967) in Candollea and Brickel (1980: Colchicum in Flora Europaea Vol.5), 1984: Fl. of Turkey Vol. 8, p329-351) discussed the status of some of those species in detail and expressed doubts about the distinctness of peloponnesiacum from C. pusillum and C. stevenii.

According to Tan and Iatrou only one of the many- and narrowleaved species (which I believe are pusillum, cretense, stevenii, parlatoris and peloponesiacum) consistently has  yellow anthers. Peloponnesiacum, pusillum and cretense have anthers that vary from greyish-yellow to almost black. Stevenii has apparently yellow anthers in the Middle East, but often fuscous anthers in W. Turekey...

Leave development at flowering time is also an important diagnostic feature in this group. Peloponnesiacum, stevenii and pusillum have leaves at flowering time, while parlatoris and cretense have no leaves at flowering time except in rare cases.

Flower colour of peloponesiacum is quite distinct from other species in this group except for stevenii: both have pinkish-purple to rose-purple tepals, paler towards the base...

Cupanii and psaridis are distinct from all other species in this group by having only 2-3 leaves that are somewhat wider. To make it yet a bit more complicated though, C. coustourieri, from very small islands off the southeastern coast of Crete, is sometimes regarded as being "distinct" from C. cupanii....! According to Flowers of Crete this "allegedly differs from C. cupanii in having markedly purple-striped tepals".

[mark smyth]

I have C. coustouriri  or what I bought as it but didnt take any photos because I assumed it was another of cupanii

[Kees Jan]

Mark, you may well be right in assuming that it's just another cupanii. I had a look at a picture of a cultivated plant of C. coustourieri in Flowers of Crete but the purple stripes (veins) in the tepals of that plant don't seem to be more conspicuous than in the cupanii picture that you up-loaded above...