Trip to S Turkey (E of Antalya)

[Janis Ruksans]

My current trip to Turkey can’t be named as very successful although results were very good. It started and ended with a lot of misfortunes. At first there were no electricity due very heavy snowstorm just a day before leaving home to Airport and I didn’t check my camera batteries, so I left for the first day without pictures. The next „surprise” in Antalya airport - my luggage didn’t come... But there were inside all my equipment - Turkish flora, Crocus keys, dressings, herbarium press etc., etc. It didn’t come next morning, too and as our schedule was very tight - it was impossible to wait more. So I finally got my bag 3 days before leaving Turkey when on way back we again passed airport. So I was forced to buy some dressings on place. Fortunately my maps and travel marshrout papers were in photo-bag.

The first flowers were on roadside where we stopped to buy oranges - they were marvellous Anemone coronaria. Pity, not hardy here even in greenhouse.

We started with surroundings of Gundogmus from where I. pamphylica comes (see my entry at Iris reticulata topic). There I found that my camera batteries are empty. My target there was checking of Crocus antalyensis. I had one corm from there with unusually white stigmatic branches and wanted to check its variability. But I was there too late (for third time too late!) - C. antalyensis was out of bloom as well Iris stenophylla allisonii
The next introductory target was Akseki where we passed second night in good hotel. I wanted show to my friends marvelous crocus fields on Gembos yaila and snowdrop rocks on Aldurbe yaila. Unfortunately Gembos yaila was mostly covered by snow, only small spots with amazing variability of Crocus chrysanthus were visible at that moment. Something before yaila at 1300 m altitude we spotted nice field covered with C. biflorus isauricus but there I found only 2 or 3 specimens with black connective. Very few flowers where white, but mostly nicely lilac. There were no chrysanthus flowers at that time.

On Gembos yaila situation was opposite - there were thousands of Eranthis cilicica and started blooming of C. chrysanthus, mostly hybrids with isauricus. Only on few spots were some blue isauricus.

Try to reach Aldurbe yaila failed as our car with luggage and four men inside turned so low that even 10 cm high stone on road was dangerous for our cars bottom. It was another failure of our trip - we were forced to stay on good roads only, although finally we drove by some quite dangerous marshrouts, sometimes only driver left in car. But dirty road to Aldurbe yaila was far too uneven for our car.

Not the last misfortune - my found luggage again was lost on way back and I still didn’t get it. Now wait call from Airport in Riga...

Pictures of this and next entry are made by my friends Jirko, Vaclav and Vladimir.

Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

Due heavy snowstorm outside my Internet today is very slow and other five pictures are attached here. Just got call from Airport that my luggage is found!
Janis

Crocus biflorus isauricus JJVV-005 -43
Eranthis & Crocus chrysanthus x isauricus JJVV-043 -68
Eranthis cilicica JJVV-046 -04
Eranthis cilicica JJVV-046 -08
Gagea sp. JJVV loc-01 -02

[TheOnionMan]

Janis, sorry that you had many misfortunes in your travels, but judging from some of the fine plants in your photos, you did have some success too. 

The photo of Crocus biflorus isauricus (JJVV-005 -04) seems like a particularly rich color form.  And the photo of Crocus chrysanthus x isauricus natural hybrids, what an amazing hybrid swarm... all colors and intermediates seem to be there. Do you find such hybrid swarms often?

Eranthis cilicica is a treat to see too... thanks for sharing your travelogue and photos!

[Maggi Young]

Something went wrong with Janis' last post so I repost here:

Re: Trip to S Turkey (E of Antalya)
« Reply #3 on: Today at 03:18:28 PM »

Quote from: TheOnionMan on Today at 02:51:10 PM
Janis, sorry that you had many misfortunes in your travels, but judging from some of the fine plants in your photos, you did have some success too. 

The photo of Crocus biflorus isauricus (JJVV-005 -04) seems like a particularly rich color form.  And the photo of Crocus chrysanthus x isauricus natural hybrids, what an amazing hybrid swarm... all colors and intermediates seem to be there. Do you find such hybrid swarms often?

Eranthis cilicica is a treat to see too... thanks for sharing your travelogue and photos!

Janis wrote:
Real gems on Gembos yaila we met on way back - 5 days later, when much more snow melted. So wait a little.
I only twice met with hybrids in wild - the greatest number at Gembos yaila between chrysanthus and isauricus, and few on Ulu Dag between chrysanthus and pulchricolor.

Janis

[Lesley Cox]

I'm happy you have your luggage located again Janis. It's so worrying when such things happen and you have no control over the searching.

The pictures are beautiful as yours always are and the anemones are very nice in nature. In seed as well as flower! Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

[Armin]

Janis,
very regrettable with the lost luggage and equipment. Looking exited forward to your next posts from you in spite of the handicaps you had.
Some chysanthus hybrids resemble some cultivars in trade. Amazing!

[David Nicholson]

Didn't know our Post Office had an airline baggage section as well!

[Janis Ruksans]

Next morning we went to Alanya and turned North by crazy winding mountain road in mountains. In spring 2009 a group of travelers covered a very long distance along the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. In mountains N of Alanya they took pictures of a very beautiful bright blue crocus from the Crocus biflorus group with shining black anthers (see Dave Milward’s entry last March). In this region the commonly occurring subsp. isauricus has anthers with black connectives in a large proportion of specimens, but usually it has four to seven leaves and they are only 0.5 to 1 mm wide. The black-anthered plants have only two or three leaves and they are much wider. This feature brings this potentially new subspecies closer to subsp. crewei, but the latter is distributed more to the north and is known to have white-colored flower segments.
   Following their route this spring I tried to find this beautiful crocus but was there too late. This only confirmed how important is to be in correct place and time. Blooming period of crocuses isn’t long and later their tiny leaves are hided in grass.
   After this failure we took high speed to East and slept in normal hotal in Erdemli. Greatest plus of this hotel – excellent restaurant on opposite side of street.
Next morning followed our Express run to East in direction of Malatya. Weather all the time was cloudy and rainy, with some drier breaks. Making a first stop after Erkenek for roadside dinner the first interesting Crocus was found. It resembles C. biflorus subsp. caelestis but caelestis is described from far distance to West. Collecting few corms we saved this beauty (not so beautiful on my pictures) from extinction as the new road will cross just the small population of this crocus found by us. Certainly there are more in mountains.
We passed Malatya in direction to Elazig to visit Kubbe pass, but it still was in deep snow, so we stopped lower but there only some had rain damaged flowers. Seem that something happens with my camera focusing system, so pictures are quite poor. Fortunately something later (after a day or two) it recovered and again worked well.
We returned to Malatya, passed it and slept in beautiful roadside 4-star hotel (cheap) with excellent kitchen.
More later.
Janis

[I.S.]

  Janis, You have made a misfortune trip but with some interesting crocuses.
  This biflorus was on my target also but I missed it. Erkenek is in Malatya region. In this place there is only subsp. tauri registered and Caelestis location is too far from here I am a little bit indecisive!
  You have made much more way than me. Mine was not also very successful trip.

[I.S.]

    I think the C. antalyensis with light style ( which will be new subsp. of antalyensis and still is not published) is from north of Turkey not from Antalya province. I think that I have some pics of this antalyensis.
    I have seen a antalyensis location before last year they were small with median strip but this year I have seen a location they were lilac very nice speckled. there were no strip or dark spot and they were quite huge like deuche flavus and 20-30 cm depth first I thought It might be a new flavus. But it was heavy rainy, not good pics at all.

[TheOnionMan]

    I think the C. antalyensis with light style ( which will be new subsp. of antalyensis and still is not published) is from north of Turkey not from Antalya province. I think that I have some pics of this antalyensis.
    I have seen a antalyensis location before last year they were small with median strip but this year I have seen a location they were lilac very nice speckled. there were no strip or dark spot and they were quite huge like deuche flavus and 20-30 cm depth first I thought It might be a new flavus. But it was heavy rainy, not good pics at all.

Is the style "light" or "white"... photos are labeled as "white style"?  To me the style looks yellow, or yellowish.

[I.S.]

  Mark, not white, not orange exactly leuco or creamy, but never red - orange like my last one.

[Janis Ruksans]

I collected few crocus corms from Kubbe gec. last summer and they blooms now in greenhouse, so you can see them in this entry (1st picture). Next morning we continued our trip in direction to Goksum. From this part of road I was growing a pair of Crocus corms with dark filaments and blotches on base (see 2nd picture). So I wanted to check how wide distributed is such coloring. But again the exact locality was under snow but lower we found plenty of some Crocus biflorus member. It is area of subsp. tauri. On opposite side of road (more exposed to South) were few C. danfordiae, too. All the time minor rain drops.
   Most abundant the same crocus was on very wet roadside meadow near Goksum (alt. 1400 m) where it grew together with Colchicum szowitsii (in most wet places, really in water) and Crocus danfordiae. A little break in clouds something opened flowers but still my camera didn’t worked as I would like it. By the way we saw first from very few flowering Juno irises on our road. This case it was Iris persica.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

Few more pictures
Janis

07 Crocus biflorus JJVV-018 -05
08 Crocus biflorus JJVV-018 -09
09 Crocus biflorus JJVV-018 -11
10 Colchicum szowitsii JJVV-020 -01

[Janis Ruksans]

Last for this entry.
Janis

11 Colchicum szowitsii JJVV-020 -07
12 Colchicum szowitsii JJVV-020 -09
13 Crocus danfordiae JJVV-019 -02