Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Crocus => Topic started by: Janis Ruksans on December 16, 2017, 11:34:05 AM
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Here is very dark period of the year - every day light period becomes shorter and shorter and weather is cloudy, too. But it means that temperatures are not dropping and all last week's they dance around zero +/- 2 C. I'm rarely going to greenhouse - most of flowers are picked off but few still blooms - mostly two species - melantherus and some of laevigatus forms. Today surprise was seeing of flower buds (still closed as not fully developed or for very dark/cold weather) of Crocus moabiticus. Actually I supposed that it will not bloom at all this year after so cold summer.
In last years Crocus hittiticus always started blooming in December and continued into spring. This year at present only leaves are developed, but greatest surprise was bright bud of Crocus sakaltutanensis
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Crocus sakaltutanensis usually needs a hot summer to perform well, does it not? Perhaps just being drier than outdoor conditions is enough for it?
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Crocus sakaltutanensis usually needs a hot summer to perform well, does it not? Perhaps just being drier than outdoor conditions is enough for it?
Summer in its homeland is hot, but winter cold and snowy. Actually I can only speculate about influence of summer temperatures. May be too long autumn without real frosts? I never saw it blooming before so early. Although some other species from "biflorus" group already shows well developed shoots on top of pot's covering stone chips.
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It’s certainly been a strange autumn/winter so far.
I found this Crocus x gotoburgensis in flower yesterday.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4580/38357539944_e0c84f3984_o_d.jpg)
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Ruben on Facebook showed picture of Crocus babadagensis - approximately of same development level as mine C. sakaltutanensis.
But current New Year present came from HKEP & Harpke team - 3 new Crocus species from Iran. You can see it checking
https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/STAPFIA_0107_0003-0010.pdf (https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/STAPFIA_0107_0003-0010.pdf)
I still didn't read it in details, only striped out one of mine acquisitions which I intended to publish next year as most likely it is published now. But there still remain several new ones to be published in future. Seems that this process never will end. I copied some pictures from new article to show variability in Iran.
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Another new crocus was published already in September. It was named after famous Serbian researchers of crocuses Novica and Vladimir Randjelovic as Crocus randjeloviciorum Kernd., Pasche, Harpke & Raca. I already wrote about this crocus in my monograph (p.63) under description of Crocus adamioides, noting that "I grow one sample that was collected in Serbia and is believed to be Crocus adamii. It certainly is not C. adamii, but it is too early to say whether it is C. adamioides or not. It blooms later and has bluish green leaves. Most likely it is another species, as it grows much further away. Its chromosome count is 2n=18 (Ranđelović et al. 1990, 2007) – differing from both C. adamii (2n=20) and C. adamioides (2n=16)." Pictures are from my collection.
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the stripes, the colors everything is perfect on this one!
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the stripes, the colors everything is perfect on this one!
About Crocus randjeloviciorum I have no doubt.
The article about Iranian crocuses is more confusing. The new zagrosensis and mine iranicus – both are extremely similar morphologically, but I must trust that both are different on genetical level. As it is common with species researched by HKEP - the exact locality from where comes their plants is unknown. So I can't judge - are their iranicus from the type locality or not. Including of Gothenburg’s sample 01-2491 into my description of C. iranicus was mistake. Where 01-2491 was originally collected, is unknown (it was received in Gothenburg from Giesen BG as coming from Iran, but without more data). Flowers looked very similar, but basal rings quite different. So basal rings for true C. iranicus can be regarded as almost smooth (all depends from interpretation) and so only WHIR-163 can be regarded as typical iranicus. The type locality now is destroyed by rubbish deposit. If zagrosensis is really different from iranicus, then 01-2491 must be regarded as another different species. Actually there are a lot of very similar populations starting from C. iranicus type locality up to Iraq border. Without more detailed observation and basing only on morphology, I can't decide how different/similar they are and is it possible to regard them as different species or not. DNA checking is not available for me at present.
The crocus pictured as C. reinhardii in last Stapfia (107) more resembles C. inghamii, which comes from higher altitudes and has different corm tunics. Localities of both are bordering, may be even overlapping. By characters of corm tunics (see table 1. in Stapfia, 107) sample HKEP1555 seem to be correct C. reinhardii, but pictured flowers seem to be from C. inghamii, which has different pattern of segments outside design and different corm tunics. When I found them both just the corm tunics forced me to suppose 2 different species growing there as C. reinhardii was already out of flowers and I saw it blooming only in cultivation. May be similar problem had HKEP - finding well developed plants of reinhardii (may be at place where their collegue from Gatersleben Reinhard Fritsch found it) and checking its characters, they pictured plants blooming at higher altitude which actually represent C. inghamii. Of course it is only speculation. To compare flowers I'm attaching here small fragment from picture illustrating C. reinhardii HKEP-1555 in article about Crocus adamii group in Iran published in last Stapfia (107) - see entry higher.
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To be correct I'm adding one more picture of mine reinhardii which by colour pattern slightly approximates pictures of HKEP-1555, although is much darker blue. There striping is confluent. True C. reinhardii has striped back of flowers outside and are dark blue, whilst C. inghamii is whitish and with dark basal blotch and only one median dark stripe.
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Truly special and exquisite Crocus Janis ! :o
I had and have two forms of Crocus hittiticus in flower this month - one with speckled outers (1 and 2) and one with striped outers (pix 3 and 4).
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some colors are welcome, outside it's dark.
Janis i'll read the HKEP document tomorrow evening, Stapfia 107 has been public released?
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Blooming at winter solstice today, in Virginia, c. speciosus 'Conqueror', with what appears to be an extra inner and outer segment, and c. laevigatus
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Blooming at winter solstice today, in Virginia, c. speciosus 'Conqueror', with what appears to be an extra inner and outer segment..............
I'm not familiar with this one and I'm no Crocus expert (not an expert in anything at all if it comes to that!) but given what you said about extra 'bits' and the fact that a brief G****e search produced a couple of examples much lighter in colour than yours I was worried about the 'V' word........virus. The experts will no doubt give a view.
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some colors are welcome, outside it's dark.
Janis i'll read the HKEP document tomorrow evening, Stapfia 107 has been public released?
Yes, click on link mentioned in my entry - and it will open for you without special payment.
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Merry Christmas to everyone forumist! SUN WILL RETURN!
In our garden...
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The best gift to christmas, first flowers from own cross: Crocus chrysanthus x melantherus
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The best gift to christmas, first flowers from own cross: Crocus chrysanthus x melantherus
Parent plants bloomed in same time or you kept pollens of melantherus for pollinationg of chrysanthus s.l. ?
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Pot from Crocus chrysanthus on a window in my house, pollinated with the last flower from C.melantherus in January 2014.
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Nice gift this morning, Crocus caricus in all its glory.
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Nice gift this morning, Crocus caricus in all its glory.
Super! With me only related C. fauseri developed some leaves, but no flowers at moment.
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Nice gift this morning, Crocus caricus in all its glory.
Glory is the word ! It looks truly glorious Yann ! Excellent photography too, worthy of Christmas eve ! :o
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Crocus chrysanthus x melantherus open yesterday.
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This Crocus opened for the first time this morning. Can someone identify the species for me please?[attachimg=1][attachimg=2][attachimg=3][attachimg=4][attachimg=5]
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Two in silver and one in gold
Crocus babadagensis
Crocus korolkowii
and Crocus michelsonii
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We have incredibly warm and wet December. Still no real frost this autumn came. I'm not counting few nights when night temperature dropped in greenhouse to minus 3 C. There are almost no sunny days, only few some hours long break in clouds when sun can enter, but not sufficient for opening of still tight buds of those spring crocuses which hurried to come out, but for some autumn bloomers it was sufficient.
The most proliferous blooming continues on Crocus melantherus and C. laevigatus.
Crocus cambessedesii came out late and I think it is the first time when its flowers started to open.
Still only partly open remains Crocus aleppicus
And blooms some of Crocus pumilus stocks from Crete - here picture of plant got from Jim Archibald.
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Of course there are several others autumn blooming crocuses as caspius, niveus etc. where remains some flowers, but there are only few of them, so I didn't pictured those.
From spring bloomers in addition came out the first flowers of Crocus hittiticus. Although it happened around week ago, the was insufficient sun to open their buds.
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Although temperature was not very low, I a little experimented with different coverings against frost inside greenhouse. My traditional tool is glass-wool, but now I compared it with 2 layers of bubble plastic. and put below thermometer registering max and minimal temperatures. It turned that both materials protect against minimal frost almost identically. Problems came in daylight, when shined sun. Below transparent bubble film in sum temperature started to rise, whilst under glass-wool it remained constant. That is very important to protect plantings against too early coming out. So - I will remain with glass-wool as the best protector.
The global forecast for January at my place still is very warm, up to +3 C comparing with average, and there are only few days with frost not lower than minus five, but precipitation +20% of average - mostly rain and wet snow. Last night we had heavy snowing here, now again all is black and outside is +2 C. Garden beds are flooded...
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This Crocus imperati TCH2911 was grown from seed from the Crocus group - judging by its collection code one from Hubi and his son Chris ! :D
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To end the year, Crocus michelsonii from all angles.
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Beautiful, beautiful crocus! Such elegance, such variety, such delicacy - who could resist these gems?
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This Crocus imperati TCH2911 was grown from seed from the Crocus group - judging by its collection code one from Hubi and his son Chris ! :D
With me at present only leaves... :'( but may be it is good, as winter certainly will come sometimes.
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some stunning crocuses shown here, nothing in bloom yet here.
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This Crocus opened for the first time this morning.
Lovely pictures, Margaret. No one has identified it yet, though.
Diane
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Lovely pictures, Margaret. No one has identified it yet, though.
Diane
No, I’m really disappointed. I thought it would be quite straightforward for the experts who grow lots of different Crocus species (I don’t). Perhaps I’ll have to give some clues about where it came from.
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No, I’m really disappointed. I thought it would be quite straightforward for the experts who grow lots of different Crocus species (I don’t). Perhaps I’ll have to give some clues about where it came from.
Pictures really are excellent, but there are only few crocus species which you can identify without doubt, seeing only picture of flower. Very important are corm tunics. Of course, origin (from where it come from) could be very helpful. I have some ideas, but outside colour confuses me and throat colour, may be, too.
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Pictures really are excellent, but there are only few crocus species which you can identify without doubt, seeing only picture of flower. Very important are corm tunics. Of course, origin (from where it come from) could be very helpful. I have some ideas, but outside colour confuses me and throat colour, may be, too.
Thank you, Janis, I'll try to remember to photograph the corm when I repot it. I think it’s a common crocus but with a strange colour outside and no yellow in the throat.
In April 2014, David and I flew to Kefalonia, one of the Ionian Islands off the west coast of the Peloponnese. The island’s highest peak Megálos Sorós which is 1,628m rises straight from the sea and is part of the Mt. Énos National Park. We climbed to the top on 12th April and saw a lot of good snowmelt plants though no Crocuses, but there was an interpretative sign which showed a photograph of ‘Crocus sieberi ssp. sublimis’ with a completely white throat. We wondered if the colour on the sign had faded, but lower down the mountain (at 1,340m), in a shady picnic area, we came across one last remaining battered crocus which did indeed have a pure white throat. Several days later while photographing orchids elsewhere on the island, we came across some crocus seed, a little of which we brought home and grew. We thought it was probably an autumn flowering species as it was at a lower altitude and the seed was already ripe, but I think the only autumn flowering crocus on the island is C. hadriaticus and the pictures I posted aren’t that.
So, I think it must be Crocus sublimis which, as Janis says in his book, can have a throat completely devoid of the yellow pigmentation. There is no C. veluchensis on the island, so no possibility of hybridisation with that. But the colouration on the outside of the outer tepals seems very strange and wasn't present on the only one we saw in flower on the island. Perhaps Kefalonia is full of crocus in flower at the moment!
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Thank you, Janis, I'll try to remember to photograph the corm when I repot it.
Just discovered I photographed it this year.
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Without great doubt it is sublimis. My opinion was that it is crocus from atticus-sublimis-nivalis-athous group, just for the very characteristic flower's shape, but I was not sure about this. Of course it was too little information to decide just which one species.
The throat colour in this group is very variable. I'm attaching here C. sublimis picture from Mt. Parnasos. You can see white throat. When I saw blooming plants of C. athous on Mt. Athos, they were with white throat, but I collected few out of flowers, too and they had well expressed yellow tone in throat when bloomed in my collection.
Checking my papers, I found that on Kephalonia from this group grows just sublimis, so you can without doubt to name it sublimis.
Few pictures of flower buds today.
The first is recently published C. randjeloviciorum. It was described from Serbia, but this plant comes from adjacent Bulgaria, most likely the same, growing on same mountain system and not far from locus classicus.
The next is still unidentified species from "biflorus" complex, originally collected not far from Seydishekir in direction to Akseki in Turkey.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE AND MANY NICE ENTRIES IN 2018!
Sincerely Yours
Janis