Crocus sativus

[David Nicholson]

Over on the NARGS Forum we have been having a short discussion about Crocus sativus and I quoted some material about it from Janis Ruksans monograph ("Crocuses: A Complete Guide to the Genus" Timber Press 2010) including that it was a sterile triploid most likely a selected form of Crocus cartwrightianus. McMark, who flowers it well, came up with two pieces of information that I thought Croconuts might find interesting, and one of them amusing as well

http://www.magicgardenseeds.com/CRO01

Mark grows his sativus close to a couple of corms of C. thomasii:-

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/11263508909430244

[Maggi Young]

  I was just about to post  in the same vein, David!

Beginning here: http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=555.msg11864#msg11864 there is a photo of a super clump of saffron crocus which McMark assures us has flowered well for nearly a decade, I think. Then there are more crocunut discussions... all of which I find interesting.

[David Nicholson]

Great minds..........

[Gerry Webster]

Over on the NARGS Forum we have been having a short discussion about Crocus sativus and I quoted some material about it from Janis Ruksans monograph ("Crocuses: A Complete Guide to the Genus" Timber Press 2010) including that it was a sterile triploid most likely a selected form of Crocus cartwrightianus.

Crocus sativus seems to be self-sterile but it is not completely sterile; it is known that it can be pollinated by other saffron crocuses. Some years ago I had a seed pod on one of my plants & the probable pollinator was either C. asumaniae or C. cartwrightianus. Unfortunately, just after collecting the seed I was put out of action by a mini-stroke so I never found out what they would have produced.

[Lesley Cox]

My newly bought (last March) clump of a dozen corms produced 7 flowers with which I was delighted. It's still in full leaf and I planted the corms a good 30cms down in the soil. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do in the coming autumn.

The NARGS site I find abysmally slow to load and I usually give up well before it has appeared. Either I'm so used to the SRGC site which appears instantaneously or I'm just getting impatient in my old age.

[Rick R.]

NARGS and SRGC use the same forum program.
My computer is 10+ years old, and both the NARGS and SRGC forums load equally well.  Go directly to the NARGS forum and skip the NARGS main page.  The NARGS main page is a relatively large download in comparison.
nargs.org/smf

The difference is that you frequent the SRGC forum, and your computer stores web pages in its memory (cache), so when you return, it doesn't have to download everything again from scratch.

Once you have the full nargs forum page in your personal computer cache, it should come up rather quickly the next time you call it up.  

[Croquin]

Dear all,

I have only joined the forum and to introduce myself: I am specifically interested in C. sativus - which I cultivate and study, and from there, in discovering the world of crocuses.
______________________

C. sativus is self-sterile, which seems to be the case in the genus.
Additionally, its pollen is considered to be sterile, including in transpecies crossings with close cousins.
C. sativus pollen seems to be faulty enough to be a significant bar to sexual reproduction (not germinating, or germinating but with too short or deformed pollen tubes).
Additionally, the triploidy of the plant brings unbalanced reproductive cells: in the case where a pollen grain germinates and reaches the ovary, it is possible that its amount of chromosomes can't be matched to the amount of chromosomes in the female cell (however, the tiny possibility that it matches still exists).

Some amount of fertile seeds can be obtained by fertilizing C. sativus flowers with pollen from C. cartwrightianus or C. thomasii.

Here is some refs:

• Looking for Saffron's (Crocus sativus L.) Parents. 2010 Caiola, M. G., Canini, A. Functional Plant Science and Biotechnology 4 (Special Issue 2), 1-14
• A study of karyotypes in the Crocus sativus L. aggregate and origin of cultivated saffron. Agayev, Y.M. Zarifi, E. Fernandez, J.A. Acta horticulturae. 2010 Jan., no. 850 p. 47-54
• Seed structure in Crocus sativus L. ×, C. cartwrightianus Herb., C. thomasii Ten., and C. hadriaticus Herb. at SEM. Maria Grilli Caiola, Donatella Leonardi and Antonella Canini, Plant
  Systematics and Evolution, Volume 285, Numbers 1-2, 111-120
• Allozyme differentiation in four species of the Crocus cartwrightianus group and in cultivated saffron (Crocus sativus). Giuliano Frizzia, Michele Mirandab, Claudio Pantania, Fernando Tammaro. Biochemical Systematics and Ecology. Volume 35, Issue 12, December 2007, Pages 859-868

______________________

The origin of C. sativus is still debated, but C. cartwrightianus is often considered as the ancestor.
According to your expertise in crocuses, how do you think C. sativus came into existence ?

Was it a natural mutation in C. cartwrightianus which was selected by humans who noticed its bigger flowers and longer stigmas ?
Could it have survived without man care ?
Those stating that C. sativus originates from Iran or even Cachemire: is there a local crocus specie that could have given birth to C. sativus there ?

Thanks for your kind feedback to my questions.

[Croquin]

Crocus sativus

[tonyg]

Welcome Christian!  Hopefully some of the experts will reply to your questions.

I have not experimented with Crocus sativus but I do find this group of species hybridise quite easily.  Interesting that you mention Crocus thomasii as I have several unusual seedlings from this species which appear to have crossed with Crocus cartwrightianus and/or Crocus oreocreticus.

PS Pictures should be no more than 800 pixels across ... otherwise they are impossible to view!

[TheOnionMan]

Gee, I felt my ears burning for a couple weeks, now I know why

I had also posted C. sativus here on SRGC in 2010:
http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5582.msg156251#msg156251

Lesley, not sure why the NARGS Forum site is loading slow for you, I'm curious to learn if any of our other NZ friends have similar experience.  For me, I see no difference in loading pages on NARGS or SRGC, both are speedy. There are a number of possibilities for slow loading of web pages, issues with the Internet Service Provider, the presence of malware or viruses on one's computer, router settings, etc.  I would be suspicious of the malware possibility, because a chief indicator of malware/spyware presence on computers is their monitoring and interference with your internet browser, often causing slowness or inability to load pages.  If you haven't already done so, try accessing NARGS forum with a different browser... when I have difficulty on a few sites using Internet Explorer, first thing I try is accessing the same site with FireFox.

[Croquin]

Tony,

thanks for your welcoming and for the advice - I did not know and was only concerned with the weight (it came normally to my monitor though).

you are correct, some of them are very closely related and can hybridize easily.
in their quest for C. sativus ancestors, scientists tested the sexual compatibility of C. sativus with C. oreocreticus, C. pallasii, C. thomasii, C. cartwrightianus, and C. hadriaticus, they can all hybridize but with different rates of success.

if I remember correctly, the best success rates are with C. cartwrightianus and C. thomasii.

now, I do not know much about hybridizing between the species from this group but surely someone here must know.

here is the list I have : section crocus, series crocus

•   Crocus asumaniae B. Mathew & T. Baytop (1979)
•   Crocus cartwrightianus W. Herbert (1843)
•   Crocus hadriaticus W. Herbert (1845)
•   Crocus moabiticus F. Bornmuller & J.E. Dinsmore (1912)
•   Crocus mathewii H. Kemdorff & E. Pasche (1994)
•   Crocus naqabensis D. Al-Eisawi (2001)
•   Crocus oreocreticus B.L. Burtt (1949)
•   Crocus pallasii
o   subsp. pallasii K.L. Goldbach (1817)
o   subsp. dispataceus E. A. Bowles (1982)
o   subsp. haussknechtii B. Mathew (1977)
o   subsp. turcicus B Mathew (1977)
•   Crocus thomasii M. Tenore (1826)