Crocus December-2017

[Janis Ruksans]

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

[Maggi Young]

Crocus sakaltutanensis usually needs a hot summer to perform well, does it not? Perhaps  just being drier than outdoor conditions is  enough for it?

[Janis Ruksans]

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.

[Steve Garvie]

It’s certainly been a strange autumn/winter so far.
I found this Crocus x gotoburgensis in flower yesterday.

[Janis Ruksans]

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

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.

[Janis Ruksans]

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.

[Yann]

the stripes, the colors everything is perfect on this one!

[Janis Ruksans]

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.

[Janis Ruksans]

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.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Truly special and exquisite Crocus Janis ! 

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).

[Yann]

some colors are welcome, outside it's dark.
Janis i'll read the HKEP document tomorrow evening, Stapfia 107 has been public released?

[TCalkins]

Blooming at winter solstice today, in Virginia, c. speciosus 'Conqueror', with what appears to be an extra inner and outer segment, and c. laevigatus

[David Nicholson]

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.

[Janis Ruksans]

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.

[Janis Ruksans]

Merry Christmas to everyone forumist! SUN WILL RETURN!
In our garden...