Crocus januari 2012

[Janis Ruksans]

In quick steps approximates cold. Still very cloudy and around zero, but from Saturday will start dropping of temperature and at present are offered "only" minus 16 C for following week and further, too. Visiting greenhouse before covering, which will be done on Sunday I was shocked by many pots which started to show flowerbuds and few pots I brought in for pollination and for pictures (some blooms for the first time with me). So I can show you few.
I very waited blooming of C. adamii from Bulgaria to compare it with Caucasian forms and checking are they cross-able or not. Here you can see some variability of those crocuses.
Strange, but this year Crocus alatavicus comes up slower than korolkowii and michelsonii. Here first flower of alatavicus from Alma-Ata.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

One of most widely growing crocuses is Crocus chrysanthus which grow wild from Bulgaria through Greece to almost half of Turkey. I think that only problems to separate various stocks by visual features keeps this large complex as only one species as there are samples with chromosome numbers 2n from 8 to 20, in all possible variants. So I usually collect some sample from every locality and now counted that in total I have more than 60 samples from various localities. Here two samples from S Turkey - JJVV-003 from ~100 km NE from Antalya and JJVV-052 from W of Antalya. From last locality I collected only one corm as supposed that it must be biflorus atrospermus and was quite surprised seeing yellow bud which just now opened - 2 hours after bringing in my bathroom.
Janis

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wonderful Crocus Janis !
Nothing quite so special here, but Crocus tommasinianus roseus is flowering 6 weeks earlier than last year.
We even had 10 minutes of sunshine today, enough to open the flowers...    ... and to see that one had been chewed on... 

[Alex]

A couple of intense yellow Crocuses today - C. cvijicii and C.gargaricus ssp. gargaricus.

Alex

[YT]

It looks many bulbs are flowering much earlier than the usual year in Europe Here at my place, Crocus michelsonii is blooming (only) a couple of weeks earlier than the last season

[art600]

I find Crocus michelsonii very difficult, so I was delighted to find this one flower yesterday.

I will post another photo with the flower closed as I think it is even more beautiful

[WimB]

Some Crocus in flower (or in bud) here now:

Crocus atticus 'M Hoog's Memory'
Crocus chrysanthus 'Uschak orange'
Crocus korolkowii 'Lucky Number'
and Crocus korolkowii

[Tony Willis]

Some in flower in the sunshine yesterday and today

Crocus sieberi from Crete
Crocus biflorus ssp from Turkey
Crocus biflorus ssp crewii two different plants
Crocus biflorus issauricus
Crocus biflorus ssp pulchricolor white

[Tony Willis]

A few more

Crocus biflorus ssp pulchricolor x chrysanthus natural hybrid
Crocus chrysanthus
Crocus cyprius
Crocus etruscus
Crocus sieberi mt parnassus
crocus vernus

[art600]

Tony

Considering your conditions you have done very well to keep them growing in character.

A fine selection

[Tony Willis]

Arthur thank you, we are now on our second day of sunshine after six continuous ones of rain and it has been so dark we have had the lights on in the house all day. I had thought they would be a right off. The gods smile on us all occasionally.

[David Nicholson]

Lovely stuff Tony, I could do with some of your sunshine.

[WimB]

Wonderful Crocusses, Tony!

That hybrid between C. biflorus subsp pulchricolor and C. chrysanthus is very nice.

[art600]

Not expensive and certainly a good grower 'Firefly' is one of my favourites

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wow !!!  A brilliant series Tony !!! 
The hybrid, the cyprius, the sieberi... all exceptional forms !

I had Crocus fleischeri from Gulek pass opening today