Onosma species

[ozgur70]

Hi,
These photos are from Turkey. Middle Anatolia.
1- Konya - Elevation ~1000 m.
2- Konya the same place with no:1
3- Karaman Elevation 1200 m.
4- The same place with no:3
5- Mersin - Elevation 2000 m.

[TheOnionMan]

Hello Ozgur,

Very difficult to find information on Onosma, and it is a confusing group, with 95 species listed for Turkey. Even the Van Flora that lists all of them, only shows descriptions and/or photos and herbarium specimens for 21 of them.  The ones you show are all very attractive species.  I like the little white-flowered one, very low, and showing most of the flower tube (in many Onosma the bracts conceal a large portion of the flower).  The Konya blue one is lovely too. I wish more of the blue-flowered ones were available in cultivation, the genus is so poorly represented in cultivation, yet seem easy to grow.

The last one, with beautiful pink-turning-blue flowers and red stems, from Mersin (İÇEL province), seems like a close fit for Onosma albo-roseum var. sanguinolentum.  It is written about that species "The species is extremely variable in nearly all its characters; the three taxa distinguished above are not very clearly delimited. It is cited for lçel Province: Anamur to Mersin.

Using the Tubives flora of Turkey database at http://turkherb.ibu.edu.tr/index.php?sayfa=200
here's a list of Onosma species for each of the three provinces you found Onosma in, this will at least narrow down your search.

Onosma in Konya province Turkey

  Onosma papillosum  
  Onosma halophilum  
  Onosma xanthotrichum  
  Onosma isauricum  
  Onosma lycaonicum  
  Onosma stenolobum  
  Onosma sieheanum  
  Onosma tauricum ssp. brevifolium  
  Onosma roussaei  
  Onosma armenum  
  Onosma giganteum  

Onosma in Karaman province Turkey

  Onosma sericeum  
  Onosma isauricum  
  Onosma sieheanum  
  Onosma angustissimum  
  Onosma armenum  
  Onosma giganteum

Onosma in İÇEL province Turkey (includes Mersin)

  Onosma tenuiflorum  
  Onosma rutilum      
  Onosma frutescens  
  Onosma microcarpum  
  Onosma ovalifolium  
  Onosma albo-roseum ssp sanguinolentum  
  Onosma tauricum var. tauricum  
  Onosma angustissimum  
  Onosma bornmuelleri  
  Onosma aucheranum    
  Onosma giganteum  

[ozgur70]

Hi,
These are so important and valuable informations for me. Thanks a lot.
The bule ones from Konya are really very beautiful. Their flowers are bigger than the others and has a ot of flowers. The photo of albo-roseum from Mersin is not so good because there is rain at that time. But it is realy beautiful at site.
Thanks for your comment.

[Lesley Cox]

Very nice colours in 2a and 5. I'd imagined the whole lot as white, yellow or occasionally pink.

[Brian Ellis]

Most interesting Özgür, as has been said the Konya blue is very pretty.  I had no idea there was such a wide spectrum.  Thank you for pointing some more out to us.