Crocus November 2017

[Janis Ruksans]

Yesterday we had some night frost - minus 3 C but day was sunny and so several new pictures were taken in my greenhouse.
The first is last flowers of purest white C. niveus. Although name suppose white colour, mostly flowers are slightly bluish shaded and sometimes even blue. This is one of the best purest white clones in my collection.
Crocuses at present named as C. cancellatus still contains some species. Here you can see form from Israel, which most likely can be regarded as typical cancellatus.
C. dilekyarensis is one of those separated from cancellatus group and in wild you can find it on very W of Turkey.
The last two pictures represents two acquisitions of C. damascenus from Iran - both are the first blooming in my collection.

[Janis Ruksans]

Some more crocuses from East
Iranian Crocus haussknechtii
2 pictures of Crocus hermoneus from Jordania
Crocus hyemalis from Israel
and more to the West - Crocus veneris from Cyprus

[Janis Ruksans]

Two close relatives
Crocus laevigatus from Ikaria Island - blue coloured
and Crocus pumilus from Crete

[Janis Ruksans]

Still blooms Crocus mathewii and here two pictures of the very best form of it cv. 'Brian Mathew'
Quite distributed in last time is cv. 'Dream Dancer'. Actually only this autumn I gave more attention to it and was surprised for white, most likely sterile anthers of it. Then I checked pictures from former years - they all had same anthers, so it is not seasonal problem. This force me to suppose that it is not pure C. mathewii but hybrid with some other species. Would be interested to know about your observations. May be it is raised by my conditions only? Although this autumn Erch Pasche sent to me few additional corms of 'Dream Dancer' and their flowers had same white, sterile anthers.

This C. pallasii s.l. very resembles C. dispathaceus but was collected near Simav, very far from traditional localities of C. dispathaceus.

And last two are pictures from Portugal crocus of serotinus group. Unfortunately I haven't their corm tunics to check netting for identification - is it salzmannii or clusii (by my memory tunics were with fine fibres, so type serotinus is excluded).

[sokol]

mine have also white anthers.

[Janis Ruksans]

mine have also white anthers.

Seem that yours are without pollens, too.

[Ian Y]

Here is a dark form of Crocus mathewii that I received and thought was  'Dream Dancer' it has yellow pollen that looks to be fertile so it may be another form.

[Janis Ruksans]

I have similarly coloured forms from wild and they all are fertile - in attached picture both flowers are from plants collected at same locality at locus classicus.

[Yann]

Despite the dark and wet weather, some crocuses are shining.

Crocus biflorus ssp melantherus from seeds collected by the late Marcus Harvey in Rhodos.
Crocus hyemalis, another seedling batch

[ikizzeki]

C.asumaniae and its habitat.

[Yann]

the rock background is perfect for those crocuses,  did you see them  near Antalya?

[Yann]

Crocus cambessedesii is brightening up the cold and short day.

[ikizzeki]

From the habitat, Antalya, Turkey

[Maggi Young]

We in SRGC are delighted to learn this  most exciting and very pleasant  news from Latvia - Janis Ruksans' latest  crocus book has been given an award from  the Latvian Academy of Sciences for best achievements in biology and his  book has been  listed in the  honorary list of 10 best publications of Academy members in the year 2017.

A wonderful acknowledgment of the  calibre of Janis'  work -  Janis  must be more than pleased to have these honours.

Well done, Janis - we are not at all surprised at this success!

[Matt T]

A wonderful endorsement of Janis' achievements, richly deserved!! Looking forward to seeing Janis again at Dunblane in February.