Colchicums autumn 2007

[Kees Jan]

The rare C. psaridis (one of the species related to cupanii) in southern Peloponnesos...

[Paul T]

Kees,

Great to see pics of them in the wild.  Lovely dark flowers on some of the species you're showing too..... very nice!!

[DaveM]

Super pics everyone. I particularly like the C sanguicole. I too remember this in large numbers in Antalya region last year. I entirely concur with Kees Jan when he says that with the exception of C sanguicole, the rest are difficult to identify. I have just returned from a colchicum 'fest' on a visit to the area around Adana, Gaziantep and Antakya - a mere 9 species in flower. Will post some pics over the next few days or so, but since C cilicicum has already been mentioned, I'll start with this robust and plentiful species from a locality in the eastern Taurus, north of Adana.

Dave

[DaveM]

I was quite surprised by the variation in tepal shape, if not by the colour variation. Note, as stated by Kees Jan, this is one of the tessalated species. here are a few more pics from this population.

[Paul T]

Dave,

I love htat strong pink one with the white stripe (third last pic).  Reminds me a bit of C. purpurascens, although that is nowhere near as strong a colour.

[Katherine J]

Does anybody know please, which Colchicum is this from the Velebit mountains, Croatia??

[Kees Jan]

I think the first one is probably a form of C. bivonae. Is the second one just a white form of the same species? It seems to be somewhat different and has yellow stamens.

[DaveM]

Next installment: firstly Colchicum kotschyii - we only saw this plant, growing with rather more common C. polyphyllum and wondered if this really is C kotschyii or just a white form of the the other rather more common species. However, the texture of the tepals and other characteristics of the stamens and style convinced us of its true identity.

The second is the rather beautiful dryland species C persicum. The border area with Syria, south of Gaziantep is at the limit of the distribution of this species. We found this in flower in recently ploughed fields. The area is remarkably dry and prior to our visit there had been no autumn rains. There were no roots on the plant examined. The soil was a clay rich brown earth developed on basalt.

Dave

[DaveM]

.... and a few pix of Colchicum decaisnei from the Eastern Taurus mountains, north of Adana. We also saw this south of Antakya in Hatay province.

[Paul T]

I particularly like the Colchicum decaisnei with it's more spidery flowers.  All very nice pics!!

[I.S.]

   Thanks to everbody for nice pics. 
Dave! wonderfull pics from best corner of country. East Taurus and Amanos mauntains (Antakya) very rich in plants. I think there sould be some more colchicum in the area which I have never seen before even any photos for identify. For example C. crocifolium, C. minutum, C. polyphyllum, C. dolichantherum. (except crocus)These should be also in the same area. Do you have anything about them?
  For me also the best one is the dark cilicicum.

[DaveM]

Thanks, Ibrahim. Indeed a fabulous trip - one that I shall remember for a long while. For me the whole range of cilicicum colours were the best. We did see other species, including some of those you mention and I will post pictures for you. It's actually quite difficult (and frustrating, without a copy of the flora) to get good reliable information about many of these species - and there seems to be much confusion over naming with some. For example, you mention C minutum, which one of my books lumps with C psaridis (which Kees Jan showed from Greece if I recall correctly). However, the Greek psaridis is autumn flowering, but one source I have says minutum is spring flowering!      C crocifolium is listed by this same source as a synonym for C kesselringii, which I thought was a central Asian species and spring flowering -- double, even triple confusing........

We didn't see dolichantherum - but I recall seeing this from the western Taurus last year.

One unexpected find was C boissieri (pic below), a stoloniferous species that is also common to the Western Taurus. Fortunately, there is one record (Baytop 1990) from the pass between Findikpinar and Arslankoy, in Eastern Tuarus, the identical spot to our find.

The other pics in this post are of the rare C davisii, from the Gaziantep area.

[DaveM]

And here are some pix of Colchicum polyphyllum ......

[Kees Jan]

Thanks for sharing these pics Dave.

C. psaridis was included in the Flora of Turkey (1984) but is know regarded as being only found on the Mani Peninsula in S Peloponnese, Greece. The Turkish records should be regarded as C. minutum K.M.Pers. (Karin Persson, 2001, supplement 2 of the Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands).

[Thomas Huber]

Wonderful photos from the wild, David, Kees and Kathrine!

Here a photo of Dominique's garden which made me astonished: