Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => Travel / Places to Visit => Topic started by: Alan_b on March 15, 2017, 11:42:22 AM
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I have a significant birthday this year and decided to treat myself to a plant-observing tour before I get too old to venture-off on such things. These tours are fiendishly expensive compared to, say, two weeks on the Costa Brava but you get all meals plus transport plus the services of some expert tour guides. And, as it turned-out, I was the youngest person on the trip - apart from the tour guides. The tour I went on was organised by a company called Greentours http://www.greentours.co.uk/ (http://www.greentours.co.uk/) who specialise in 'Natural History Holidays' including some for, or 'branded' by, the Alpine Garden Society. This one was focused towards looking at snowdrops, which are a particular interest of mine. So, on Tuesday 7th March, I found myself at Heathrow Airport, waiting to board a plane for Istanbul.
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If you can't treat yourself for a birthday, then what can you do? ;D :) ;)
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Absolutely, Maggi; but I'll continue:
Originally there were to be seven of us on the tour but one couple had dropped-out at a late stage. I met two of the party waiting at Heathrow. Once we got to Istanbul, the plan was to take a connecting flight to Trabzon ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabzon ) which is on the Black Sea coast of Turkey towards the eastern end. There was supposed to be a two and a half hour wait for this flight but when we got to Istanbul it turned-out that our flight had been consolidated out of existence and we instead had to face-up to a six hour wait for a flight that left Istanbul at five minutes to midnight and got to Trabzon around 1:30 a.m. Fortunately Istanbul and Trabzon are three hours ahead of UK time so our bodies did not feel this was quite as late as it sounds. Moral: always check your boarding passes for connecting flights to verify that they indicate the flight departure time that you were expecting.
Had we been prepared for this eventuality we could possibly have taken ourselves off for a meal in Istanbul. As it was we had to sit it out in the down-market Domestic Departures lounge, where we came across the remainder of our party of five. To calm myself I listened to some Steve Reich albums that I had downloaded to my Kindle. Surely he is the greatest living composer?
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At Trabzon Airport we were met by our tour guide, Andy Byfield. Andy is an expert botanist who seemed to be able to identify any plant at a glance. He has also originated a number of really great snowdrops. There is a short profile of him here: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andy-byfield (https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andy-byfield)
Andy has a very charming and easy-going manner. In the movie of his life I am convinced he would be played by Hugh Grant - wearing some sort of elevator shoes to make him taller.
Our hotel was in the centre of Trabzon. This looked to be an interesting and vibrant city - which unfortunately we never got a chance to see. Here is a picture of my room at the hotel - taken the following morning when it was light.
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Apparently tourism from the West has dried-up and the hotel would have gone bust had it not been for visitors from the Middle East.
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Andy Byfield is (of course!) an SRGC member - he is also well known as a founder of the charitable organisation Plantlife (http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk).
Very well-known galanthophile, for sure - you were in good hands there, Alan - pity about the travel probs!
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Andy Byfield worked in Turkey for some years on a program to encourage locals to farm snowdrops as a renewable resource for export rather than just digging up the wild populations (I think this was before he founded Plantlife). This meant that he knew the locales in the Turkish part of the tour and he could also speak the language. Amusingly, however, our minibus driver still seemed to have difficulty understanding him. Fortunately, he was ably assisted by his friend and erstwhile colleague, Sema, who could act as an interpreter. It was a great pleasure for me to actually meet Sema because she always features in the talks Andy gives on his experience in Turkey.
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Day 2 (8/3/17): the first day of botany. First on the agenda was a trip to Sumela Monastery ( http://www.sumela.com/ (http://www.sumela.com/) ) to see Galanthus rizehensis. At this time of year if you are looking for early spring flowers in the mountains and arrive too early then they will still be under snow, too late and they will be over. But the 'right' time will vary from year to year. So on the way up to the monastery we stopped at the 'Colin Mason Low Level Site' as this was clear and we did not know if we would have success later. Sure enough, we found some Galanthus rizehensis.
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Rize is both a coastal town and a province so logically the name should be "rizensis" but for some reason there is an extra "he" in the middle.
Cyclamen coum grew there in abundance, as did the local form of hellebore.
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I'm told the primula in these parts is primula vulgaris var sibthorpii. We saw many different colour forms in different areas; here it was near-white.
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We continued on to Sumela Monastery. As it turned out, the area was mostly clear of snow. My camera has quite a powerful zoom, which I used to take this shot from the road leading up to the monastery.
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In the vicinity we found a hillside that was covered with Galanthus rizehensis
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A small scilla was flowering amongst the rizehensis
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The weather was warm and sunny, there was a lovely light scent in the air from the snowdrops, this was close to my idea of heaven. As is my wont, I looked to see what variability existed amongst the snowdrop population. Unfortunately I am still getting used to my new camera and I did not always manage to achieve a good focus on the flowers.
The first unusual one I found had a green spot towards the tip. It looked lovely but you only get a poor impression in this bad photograph. Maybe one of my fellow travellers did better?
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This one had the mark on the inners 'running' towards the base.
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One of several 4x4s I found
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A different type of green tip and an aberrant petal
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One with very pale inners
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I could have stayed there for hours but it was time to press on. We returned to the coast road and stopped at a cafe for lunch. This is Sema and Andy; sorry about the unflattering camera angle.
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There were five of us "punters" on the tour. The only other male, apart from myself, was Pat, who had been on many tours of this type including some with forumist 'art600'; they both live in Kent. Pat was interested in a range of spring flowers and not particularly in snowdrops but he was very good indeed at spotting them from a moving vehicle. If we did see snowdrops we would stop where possible. Pat caught sight of these ones which proved to be our first sighting of Galanthus woronowii. They were perched on ledges down the side of a cliff.
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My goodness, we really can see that nature plants the best gardens, can't we?
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Our destination for the afternoon was a valley that was home to the rare Galanthus koenianus. Our itinerary describes this as "a stunning gorge with large igneous bluffs rising vertically out of the thick forest". Unfortunately a dam was built at the top of the gorge with a road to it so it isn't nearly as stunning as it once was and I'm told the numbers of koenianus are much reduced. You have to search very hard to find any at all and most were inaccessibly far up those large igneous bluffs. However Andy went to some effort to find me some that I could photograph.
Most were situated like the ones in this picture; can you even see them?
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A characteristic feature of koenianus are the groves that run along the underside of the leaf, which you can just glimpse here if you look towards the base of the nearer leaf.
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They also tend to have a diffuse mark towards the base of the inner petals
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Here an intrepid fellow SRGC forumist takes her life in her hands to get a photo. My picture does not do justice to how steep and crumbly the cliff face was, nor how high she had climbed.
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It was dark by the time we reached our next hotel at the end of our first day of botany. The road into the hotel was ominously banked with snow; would we see anything there?
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No guesses as to the identity of the lady on the ledge, Maggi? She is a National Collection holder but not of snowdrops.
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Day 3 (9/3/17): We awoke to a beautiful sunny day and the happy revelation that the area around our hotel was clear from snow. We were staying at the Ridos Thermal Hotel & Spa: http://en.ridosotel.com.tr/ (http://en.ridosotel.com.tr/) . It was indeed a thermal hotel as my room was so hot that I had to sleep the night with the balcony door open, lulled to sleep by the loud roar of the nearby river as it rushed downwards past the hotel. The plan for the day was to forget about snowdrops (difficult for me) and see instead hundred of thousands of crocuses. But first we stopped in the local town, Ikizdere, to get provisions for lunch. Travellers, give this town a miss.
I wandered down the road a little way and took three perfectly innocuous pictures; these are two (the third is a bit blurred):
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You can see our minibus parked up the street in the second picture. But I had not walked back to it before I was stopped by a young and (I'm told) attractive policeman in plain clothes. He did not speak English so i introduced him to Sema, she was able to explain why we were there and he went away seemingly satisfied. But before we could make our getaway two uniformed policemen arrived in their police car. Perhaps they were bored but they insisted that we drive down to the police station where, although we were allowed to remain in the bus, they searched all our bags. After some delay and pleadings by Sema on our behalf we were allowed to go on our way.
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Although today's mission was to see crocuses, as we drove upwards from Ikizdere the sharp-eyed amongst us caught sight of some snowdrops growing by the side of the road so we stopped the minibus to take a look. Mostly they were growing on the rocky banks at the side of the road
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Andy identified these as Galanthus alpinus
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However their leaves were very ridged, which is supposed to be a major feature to distinguish Galanthus koenianus which we saw on the previous day.
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There were one or two there with rather bright green leaves, too.
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The banks were covered with primulas which were much more colourful here:
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and there was plenty of Cyclamen coum to see.
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Alan, it is so interesting to read about your travel, thank you.
What amazes me is how the plants grow in such steep and rocky-looking banks, it must get very dry in the summer?
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I'm enjoying this Alan, many thanks for posting it.
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and there was plenty of Cyclamen coum to see.
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That would please Jo ;)
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That would please Jo ;)
Yes indeed, Brian, but what pleased her more was finding a different Cyclamen species (the name of which escapes me Tony Willis has reminded me this was Cyclamen parviflorum) on the first day of botany. I did not see it myself but from her description it is notable for being small with uninteresting leaves. One for the experts only, I fear.
For those not in the know, Jo is Jo Hynes, AKA "The Lady on the Ledge", and she holds a National Collection of cyclamen. I'm quite good friends with Jo and it was a real pleasure to find out she was going to be on the same tour as me when I got the list of participants.
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Back to the morning of day 3: We continued up a valley that was still covered by a thick layer of snow with some difficult patches on the road. Eventually we got as far as the bottling plant for the water bottles that we had been drinking at the hotel. It was evident that traffic to and from this plant was what had kept the road open and it would be dangerous and probably fruitless (for finding crocuses) to proceed further. So we stopped to stretch our legs and I took a few photographs.
This is the water bottling plant with the road we did not take to the right and beyond
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We walked up to a tiny village.
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The view in the other direction.
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A beehive up a tree. Was this to protect it from bears or some other animal? Bears can climb trees?!?
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We then walked down the road we had driven up for a way, allowing the minibus to wait for a while and then collect us. Although the south-facing slopes were clear of snow, there wasn't much to see.
Coltsfoot seems to like growing where there had been a mud slide.
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It was too early for much in the way of flowers but we saw some Cyclamen.
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and a toad in the road. Andy suggested it should be rescued before a lorry came by and squashed it but he left Jo to do the dirty work.
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The minibus caught up with me just as I had got to a bridge over the river that ran down the valley.
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We retraced our route and, approaching Ikizdere, Pat spotted more snowdrops so we stopped again. These turned out to be more Galanthus alpinus, the biggest examples that we found. Superficially, a big alpinus looks quite like an elwesii.
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We were on a south-facing slope and it was really hot and sunny. These pictures show the terrain.
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Even this early in the year the soil surface was quite dry; I don't know (Leena) how things survive being baked in the summer.
We found a few examples of Iris lazica (Pat liked Irises).
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I've forgotten what this is called, although I grow something similar at the back of the garden
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After half an hour of looking round I was beginning to burn, the sun was so strong.
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We went back to the hotel for a drink (and I borrowed some sun cream).
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Left to right we see Jo, Andy, Carolyn, the waiter and Pat. Have I mentioned Carolyn? She is an expert galanthophile with a large collection that you can visit when she opens her garden in Kent. She and I were the two newbies to this type of tour.
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excellent
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I think more of these people involved in that trip are SRGC members and forumists than one might realise. Some not terribly active these days, but members nonetheless.
You were being rather coy, Alan, so I thought they might wish to be be incognito :o
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Yes, Maggi, I sought permission from everybody before including their names and photographs but I started my 'blog' before all of them had had the chance to reply. Everyone said yes except 'A' who is yet to respond.
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After our drink, Andy took us off for a picnic on a rather steep alpine meadow where, appropriately, Galanthus alpinus grew.
This photo is courtesy of Sema so, unusually, features yours truly.
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And here is Andy with his very large banana.
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The Galanthus alpinus that grew in the meadow were much smaller than the ones we had seen earlier on the bank.
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Some alpinus had a second mark towards the base of the inners. Sorry about the imperfect focus in this shot.
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I wonder why we don't grow alpinus in our gardens?
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After lunch we tried to drive up another valley but quickly had to turn back because snow and landslips had made the road impassible. I chose to walk back so I could do a bit of exploring. It was very snowy where we stopped.
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But it got clearer as I descended
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There were many tea plantations on the side of the hills. Looking at these clipped bushes, I wondered if tea might not make an interesting alternative to box hedging in the milder parts of the UK.
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I chanced upon another meadow with lots of Galanthus alpinus and what seemed to be a hot-spot for green marks.
Ordinary, I think
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But
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And
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There are more but the photographs did not always come out well.
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The most stunning variant on the normal form that I saw throughout the trip was this:
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Super report Alan,I have visited the area in May when it is also very good. I wonder if your cyclamen was C. parviflorum which is found up the Zigana Pass beyond the Sumela Monastery.
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Thank you, Tony; that's exactly what it was.
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Just to finish off Day 3: There were some other variants in the same area.
Another one with bright green leaves (a type that became known as forma/var. briggsii).
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Very 'pale' mark.
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As our travel plans were curtailed we got back to the hotel early. Seemingly no-one visiting with Greentours had ever taken advantage of the spa facilities at the hotel, which seemed a terrible waste. So I went for a bathe in the green sulphurous pool in the basement, followed by a massage. I felt pleasantly woozy afterwards.
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Day 4 (10/3/17): We began the day with a trip to Mençuna Şelalesi (Mençuna Waterfall?) which involved a return to the coast road, quite a lengthy trip east then striking inland again. We stopped for a drink en-route.
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To reach the waterfall we had to drive up a rough track by the side of a river then walk the last 500 m (according to the signage). The first 300 m of this walk was quite steeply up. Here we are setting off by crossing the bridge over the river.
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According to my itinerary; "By the waterfall itself is a curious population of snowdrops that seem intermediate between Galanthus rizehensis and Galanthus woronowii." I couldn't see this at all; the snowdrops looked to me to be perfectly normal examples of Galanthus woronowii. Judge for yourself.
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Now I've dealt with the snowdrops, I'll show some of the scenery:
Looking across the valley you can see the tea plantations on the hillside
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This little violet was abundant in many of the places we visited. I'm told it is viola alba (although not white as the name seems to imply)
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This, apparently, was drinking water. Four grooves or two?
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The actual waterfall
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And looking downstream with the falls out of shot to the right.
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Scrambling on these rocks, Andy slipped and slid down about a metre - but no harm was done.
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Very interesting report Alan. Thanks
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When we got down to the bottom of the footpath we had a picnic lunch by the side of the river - and discovered more woronowii growing on the banks beside a stream that was coming down the hillside. So if you're not feeling energetic there is no need to climb in order to see the snowdrops.
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Look above Carolyn's head, just to the right.
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Snowdrops...
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... phototgraphed.
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Here Andy gets hugely excited about a dull piece of grass (okay, sedge) because it had not been reported as growing in Turkey hitherto. A specimen was collected to be taken to a herbarium in Istanbul.
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On the way back down we stopped the minibus to photograph a footbridge. This style was popular in this part of Turkey.
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Alan it looks like you all have fun and enjoyed this plants kingdom!
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Because our schedule was curtailed the previous day, we were now ahead and had some uncommitted time in the afternoon. So we went off on what proved to be a vain search for crocuses. But we did find some more snowdrops and we could not really identify what species they were. We found them growing in a graveyard.
Big receptacle, greenish leaves, not very wide
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Although the flowers were beginning to go over, there were many leaves and not many scapes so this snowdrop was not behaving like a good garden plant in this situation.
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There were lots of other flowers growing there. Most of these were also on the hill behind the graveyard but not the snowdrops. Could somebody have planted them in the graveyard in the same way that snowdrops are often planted on or by graves in the UK?
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We were now, I think, in Artvin Province. We branched off the main road up into the hills.
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It seemed drier here than in other parts we had visited
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We saw some muscari
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This Euphorbia resembles the Euphorbia myrsinites grown in gardens; I'm not sure if it is exactly the same. I'm sure my mother used to call this an "Ice Plant" although that name does not seem to be in common usage.
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I forget the name of either of these plants although they both look familiar and Andy would have told me at the time.
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Hopa! We then retraced our route and drove on to our next hotel in the coastal town of Hopa, not far from the Georgian border. We stayed in the Paluri Hotel. This was nice enough inside but the situation on a busy main road made for quite a lot of traffic noise in some of the rooms. The noise from the river at the Ridos Hotel had been very loud but somehow that's a sort of 'white noise' that didn't keep me awake.
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At the Georgian Border we bid a fond farewell to Sema and our minibus driver (Mehmet?). It was very crowded and we hired the services of a guide and a porter. All our luggage was loaded onto a cart and as the porter disappeared off with the cart I could not help thinking what a good way this would be to rob naive tourists. We then joined a thronging and disorderly queue with our guide indicating which line to join. Fortunately as non-locals our line was not too busy.
Having been let out of Turkey we then had a 300 m walk through no-mans land to be let into Georgia. We had been promised "As we cross the border offshore we’ll see the rare Black Sea race of Porpoise and many Black-throated Divers and Great Crested Grebes." but that was tosh as any chance to view the sea had been screened-off with sheet metal. The nearest we got to seeing "the rare Black Sea race of Porpoise" as we crossed the border was a poster advertising the dolphinarium in Batumi. Although we had nothing to declare, our guide directed us into the 'Declare' channel, probably because it was less busy. Our luggage (still with us, thankfully) was passed through a machine, then our passports were stamped and here we were in Georgia. But the adventure was not over.
As soon as we emerged, Andy was accosted by a woman with a baby whilst a little girl, maybe about 8 years old, ran over to me and wrapped her arms around my leg like a friendly boa-constrictor. She rubbed a thumb and finger together which I took to indicate that a donation might be required to make her let go but I had no change, in fact no Georgian currency whatsoever. I tried moving the leg which was being held and she tried a sham scream in response; we had reached an impasse. I stood there a moment then shrugged my shoulders and held my palms open to indicate that nothing would be forthcoming. It all started to seem rather hilarious so I grinned down at her, she grinned back up at me and let go. And here I was, finally, in Georgia.
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By the way, the Georgian currency is called Larry, or something like. I kept thinking of a song called 'Float on' by the Floaters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvu2Sbz3ax4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvu2Sbz3ax4)
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I should have said, it's
Day 5 (11/3/17)
Our guide in Georgia was the young, energetic and enthusiastic Tolkha.
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One of the ladies in the party admitted to quite wanting to take him home with her; if anyone else felt the same they kept it to themselves.
Our mission for the day was to find Galanthus krasnovii in the high hills although, unfortunately, Georgia had experienced a particularly snowy winter. Because of the rough terrain our party was divided amongst two 4x4 vehicles.
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As we neared the krasnovii site we found our road, which was more of a dirt track, was blocked by a snow drift so we turned round in order to take another route. We stopped at this point to stretch our legs and photograph the flowers and it was decided that it was time for a picnic lunch. Here is dedicated Tolkha getting it ready whilst we are off taking pictures.
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We found Galanthus woronowii
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Corydalis, mostly this colour
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but the odd one like this
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Here is a particularly lovely display of the viola we saw quite frequently
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I'm sure there was Cyclamen coum in flower also but we saw so much that I had rather given up on taking its picture by this point.
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We got to within a few hundred metres of where we might climb up a hill to see Galanthus krasnovii but the road was again blocked so the intrepid and/or fanatical galanthophiles amongst us got out to proceed on foot. Here we are preparing to set-out
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Our guide for the day was Davit who works at Batumi Botanical Gardens and knew where to find these snowdrops. He is in the centre of the last picture
As some of you may be of a nervous disposition I will tell you in advance that we all survived. Here is a picture taken by Tolkha on the way back down. It really was just as steep as it looks. Despite the snow it was also warm so I was only wearing a shirt!
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What you cannot see is the rhododendron bushes. About two thirds of the way up the hill we had to clamber through branches of the bushes of the native rhododendron that had been weighed-down with snow in order to proceed upwards. Davit assured us that Galanthus krasnovii grows under these bushes but there was no sign, even in the few areas that were clear from snow. Progress was painfully slow and after struggling upwards for a while we had to give up and turn around. But getting down again was no easier than getting up.
At one point Carolyn fell and found herself sitting in Andy's lap. Here she is extracting herself from this situation.
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This photo is again courtesy of Tolkha. I had put my camera away in order to be able to hang-on with both hands. I managed to take one shot as we got towards the bottom of the slope.
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So Galanthus krasnovii was the one that got away.
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When we got back to the vehicles, some of us needed a quick change.
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We had parked just above a house. What the people there made of us I really don't know.
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At lower altitude, our guides found us a bank of Galanthus alpinus to look at. That's the road down there in the background.
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Unfortunately the snowdrops had all finished flowering except for a "forma/var. briggsii', one with leaves that were bright green instead of the normal glaucous.
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I cannot remember the name of this weird flower but I'm sure somebody can remind me [Gerd says Aristolochia sp. ].
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We spent the night at the Oasis Hotel, on the coast north of Batumi, which was very nice. It was a big multi-storey building but out-of-season so I rather think our party may have been the only guests. Andy was very pleased to track down the Gin and Tonic that he hadn't been able to find in Turkey.
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I cannot remember the name of this weird flower but I'm sure somebody can remind me.
Sorry, not the full name, only the genus: Aristolochia (a nice one)
Gerd
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Day 6 (12/3/17):
This day was to prove to be snowdrop-free but not without other points of interest. We began with a long drive to the city of Kutaisi. We first went North along the coast road and then took a road heading East North East. it was quite a long drive with little to do in the way of botany en-route. However we did stop to look and the Leucojum aestivum. In the Cambridge Botanic gardens these are grown as a waterside marginal and that seems to be exactly the conditions they choose in nature.
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Close to Kutaisi we stopped at a sloping woodland that we saw was covered with Erithroniums. We had gone past the densest area by the time we were able to stop but with a little searching we still found quite a lot. They were very beautiful and growing in what seemed to be much drier conditions than chosen by the ones I have seen in Canada.
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This pulmonaria had very pretty flowers; who needs patterned leaves.
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Everywhere we went that had any sort of flower seemed to have beautiful primulas in abundance
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We encountered this little white potentilla (?) frequently
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But maybe it was a bit too early to see much of this lathyrus?
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We stopped by the side of the road for lunch. There was a pig nearby but she was not interested in joining us.
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In Georgia we often saw cows and pigs wandering down the street.
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Just beyond our picnic site we arrived at Gelati Monastery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelati_Monastery . The name was a trifle unfortunate because it was another really hot sunny day but there were no ice creams to be had.
Unfortunately the outside of the building was clad in scaffolding
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But the frescos inside were spectacular
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Women had to cover their heads inside.
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Our final stop was the Botanic Gardens in Kutaisi. Here they make creative use of old plastic bottle tops
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Cercis chinensis looked very spectacular here, 'coppiced' to give multiple shoots from the base. This was also quite a popular plant in people's gardens.
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Very pretty; my mind has gone blank to tell you what it is
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Within the Gardens there was a chapel inside a tree
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This was not our usual mode of transport
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For the first five nights of the trip we had stayed in quite fancy hotels. For the last two nights we went downmarket to a large B&B in the suburbs of Kutaisi. Perhaps our Tour Operator had run out of money? I missed those little touches like cleaning the dust from under the bed and towels where the soft fluffy bits had not been removed by repeated washing. This was my bathroom
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The close proximity of the shower and the toilet gives a whole new meaning to "Wash and Go".
However the food was authentic, good and arrived in vastly greater quantities than we could possibly eat.
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Very pretty; my mind has gone blank to tell you what it is.
Corylopsis ...... C. glabrescens?
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Day 7 (13/3/17);
Sadly this was our last full day of the tour; a last chance to see more snowdrop species in the wild. Our first objective was to see Galanthus shaoricus, a species similar to alpinus. But en-route we stopped to see more Erithroniums. Here they are, looking like stars in the sky:
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There were areas where scillas grew (as well as the inevitable primulas).
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We drove on and some way up a mountain pass we stopped to view Galanthus shaoricus. They and primulas were dotted around on the hillside
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My first impression was that they were quite distinct with a green tinge to the leaf colour
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Thank You, Alan, for sharing so many inspiring pictures and impressions! Galanthus alpinus forma/var. briggsii will be one I´ll be looking for, but You showed many other interesting variations of other snowdrops new to me, too!
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One still to feature, Mariette.
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Looking at more examples of Galanthus shaoricus, the leaves frequently look quite green as they appear
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You can see ridges along the leaves with the light shining through - but I think many snowdrops show this feature.
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After a while I found some more mature plants and these seemed much more normal (i.e. like alpinus and elwesii) in leaf colour.
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Andy Byfield talked about two camps, the 'Lumpers' and the 'Splitters'. Splitters see small differences as significant and will therefore tend to "create" large numbers of species. Lumpers see small differences as variability within a species so will tend to "create" far fewer species with more variability within each species. Just a few miles away from my house is the Genome Campus where they helped map the human genome and the genomes of lots of other fauna. I fail to understand how, with all this technology now available, we can remain so ignorant about the genetic make-up of flora like snowdrops.
I am not a botanist and I'm sure I miss hundreds of subtleties but to my ignorant eyes Galanthus shaoricus is not that different from Galanthus alpinus and it would not surprise me if one day they get lumped together. Time will tell.
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Although it's a poor photo, i did find the odd green tip amongst the shaoricus population.
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We then travelled on to Lake Shaori, whcih is actually a reservoir I believe. One of our party had been there before with veteran snowdrop expert Colin Mason and had visited a site where he had found four snowdrop species in close proximity. Today it was not to be.
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We were too early in the season and snow still covered most of the ground. Even in the odd clear patch, such as the one we stopped at for our picnic lunch, very few flowers had yet managed to emerge.
As one does, I had been trying to learn to say hello in Georgian. Georgian has its own alphabet, of 34 letters if I remember correctly, but many signs are also rendered in the Latin alphabet in an attempt to attract tourists. "Gamarjoba" means "hello" - this was the first and only time I saw it written down.
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By the way, I wrote earlier that the Geogian currency was called Larry. I should confess that it is more usually latinised as Lari.
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What to do after lunch? We were in Tolha's hands and Tolkha decided to head for "The Village" and the nearby site of Galanthus platypyllus. Given the conditions at Lake Shaori, this was an act of great optimism - but sometimes fortune favours the brave. So, after a long drive we found ourselves on a road going up the valley towards the mountains, following the course of the River Rioni. I have since looked on Google Maps and the road is described there as the Kutaisi-Alpana-Mamisoni Pass. Initially driving was good but we got to a section where the road was very heavily potholed (presumably still awaiting repair after winter) so our driving pace slowed to that of a fast jog. There was snow all around us and we were heading upwards. We met a car heading down, spoke to the drive and he confirmed that "The Village" was under snow. So we made the sensible decision and decided to turn round. This was easier said than done so we passengers got out to stretch our legs whilst our minibus drove off to find a turning space.
Here is the view thereabouts
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Our bus coming back
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The roadside
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On the way up, both Jo and I thought we had glimpsed some snowdrops. On the way back down we were now on the wrong side of the bus but Pat caught sight of them so we stopped to investigate. Wonder-of wonders, miracle-of-miracles we had found Galanthus platyphyllus growing at a lower altitude and in flower.
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I am completely besotted with Galanthus platyphyllus; it is such a pretty snowdrop.
Look at the beautiful bright green leaves
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And the shape of those outer petals with the little point at the end
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The inner petals lack the notch of most snowdrop species. And there is a diffuse green mark towards the base (I'm not sure how frequent this is). There also tends to be a bit of green at the base of the outer petals; that's quite a rare thing in snowdrops.
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Surely everyone will want to take their photograh?
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A few more
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Jo demonstrates the one she found with an extra outer petal.
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I don't tire of seeing these
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But if you do, the view isn't bad either.
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The more I´m grateful to learn about it from You!
The G. platyphyllus You show are beautiful finds, too! Indeed, there is nothing looking so springlike fresh like white snowdrops with green leaves at the end of winter. As You mentioned, they look odd planted side by side with grey-leaved drops - that´s why I try to collect the green-leaved ones.
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We stopped further down the road/river and chanced upon more of an alpinus-like species. Almost an anticlimax after the joy of finding platyphyllus.
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It was dark before we got back to Kutaisi and our driver got lost trying to find our obscurely-located residence - which was this place http://elitetravel.ge/en/hotels/kutaisi/hotel-zelimkhan (http://elitetravel.ge/en/hotels/kutaisi/hotel-zelimkhan) . You can see that the hallway floors were attractive, the rooms not so much.
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... - that´s why I try to collect the green-leaved ones.
I hope you have 'Green Light', Mariette. That is one I found some years ago now - and the reason why we jokingly attached my name to any snowdrop we found on this trip that had bright green leaves when they are normally glaucous.
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Day 8 (14/3/17) - Last day.
We had enjoyed 6 days in Turkey and Georgia and the weather had been consistently warm and usually sunny. We awoke on our last day to find it was raining and a good deal cooler. We were flying out from Batumi, which was several hours away in our minibus. We stopped en-route to photograph this statue to a hero of the revolution; although I'm not sure who or which.
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Our flight was not until late afternoon so we had time for a lightening tour of Batumis's huge Botanic Gardens.
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That's the nearest we got to see Galanthus krasnovii, a large poster
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a few leaves...
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and the remains of a single flower
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On the other hand, they had more Galanthus woronowii in the gardens than they can have known what to do with. Unfortunately we were there too late to see them in flower.
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To my eyes this was an odd form of woronowii, with a median stripe and the leaves a bit less bright green than usual. Earlier in the trip we had been promised "a curious population of snowdrops that seem intermediate between Galanthus rizehensis and Galanthus woronowii" but these ones seemed to my eyes to be a much better candidate to fit that description.
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If you looked up the cost from the Botanic Gardens you could see the swish Oasis Hotel where we stayed on our first night in Georgia.
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I kept looking out to sea but this fountain was the nearest I got to seeing any of those "rare Black Sea race of Porpoise".
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The Camellias were in flower ...
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but it was time to go.
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We had not managed any time to eat lunch so we stopped at the first place we found, which happened to be a rather nice restaurant on the sea-front in Batumi.
Pat and Tolkha
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In Georgia we had two vehicles, one for the people and one for the luggage, although this wasn't really necessary. You can see both our drivers in this picture.
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And that was the last event of our trip. We drove through Batumi to the airport, took a plane to Istanbul and then another plane on to Heathrow Airport. It was 22:30 by the time we arrived and too late for me to stand much chance of catching a train home so I had booked booked myself into something called a Yotel at the airport. This offers roomns paid-for by the hour which are about the size of an old-fashioned railway compartment. But clean and really quite comfortable for a short stay.
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Goodnight, everybody; that's the end of the story.
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I must agree with you, Alan - Galanthus platyphyllus is particularly attractive.
The mountain scenery is spectacular - pity there wasn't just a little less snow at that time. Pretty fun trip nonetheless though - thanks for sharing it with us.
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It was great fun, Maggi; I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Here is a picture of our happy band in Turkey that was taken by our minibus driver.
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An interesting account Alan; thank you.
Young plants from wild-collected seed (SRGC exchange 66/5113) have narrow glaucous leaves so presumably can’t be G. platyphyllus then :-\
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Alan,
Thank you for sharing this wonder-filled trip. Your descriptions and photography were engaging and educational. I enjoyed the journey.
Rick
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Thank you very much for the pictures and the detailed report of your journey - very interesting!
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Reply 68 - possibly corylopsis?
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Wow , that looks like a great trip and great fun . Thank you for sharing this
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Alan
Really enjoyed reading about your trip. Thanks for sharing.
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Greatly enjoyed our virtual version of your tour Alan; would have loved to have done it in reality. Thank you for posting.
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Thoroughly enjoyable account Alan,and what a great Birthday treat
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Alan - Thanks from us as well, a great report and pix of such rarities.
john
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Good trip with good company and to see the lovely G.platyphyllus and G.shaoricus in the wild is a great treat. Thanks for sharing it with us.
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Thank you to everyone for their comments. Welcome to Susan W who I seemingly tempted into making her first post on this forum. Ashley, all the Galanthus platyphyllus I saw had green leaves so I think it unlikely that your glaucous seedlings are correct. That's a great pity because platyphyllus is a fantastic snowdrop that should be much more widely grown if it can be adapted to low-altitude conditions.
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Very enjoyable, and hugely enviable! Really nice to see examples of snowdrops in the wild.