Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Crocus => Topic started by: Otto Fauser on April 11, 2007, 08:18:58 AM
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Crocus autranii is quite rare but I have had it for about 10 years. It has nevered increased and never set seed though it flowers regularly. This flower has been a bit chewed by something.
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This is a very nice deep coloured form of C. banaticus. There are very many in my garden, gradually spreading both bt seed and vegetatively.
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Hello Otto and welcome to the forum!
Wonderful photos, please show us more of your collection!
Here the last Crocus versicolor flowering in the
Alpes Maritimes in 1450 m last week:
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Not far away I found thousands of Bulbocodium/Colchicum vernum in flower:
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Welcome Otto!! Great pics! (you too Thomas) Keep em coming everyone.
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After about a week of cold and snow, finally a nice warm sunny day. Still many crocus just starting to pop up out of the ground.
The crocus in the second picture is really blue in color, and I think it's Skyline. I really need a new camera. I only see one of this "Skyline" I took pollen from it and put it on all the Prince Klaus flowers that were opened. Third picture, crocus is Tricolor, not sure what the yellow one is. I had one Firefly flower open, so I put pollen from it onto all the open Tricolors. I didn't take a picture, but I have some tomassinianus roseus opened also, and I took some pollen and stuck it on some giants. I then took some pollen from a couple different giants and put it back on Roseus. Does Roseus produce seed?
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Is Pickwick and King of Striped the same crocus? If these are different and you have pictures of each, could you post them so I can see the difference. Thanks.
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I've boobed again :( Put my pots of Crocus behind the greenhouse to die back and forgot about them. Suddenly remembered them today and went to have a look. Plenty of "straw" on top and not a scrap of green leaf to be seen, pots as dry as- (here's a good old Yorkshire expression)- a tram drivers glove!! Don't ask me to explain it. Gave 'em a good water just in case. Are they likely to be worth saving taking into account they were nothing special?
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If they were very yellow in the leaf, David, then you wasted your time watering them now! I'd let 'em dry out again and keep them dry till repotting later in the year. Excess moisture at this point is likely to do more harm than good. I suspect the BD is about to mention this very scenario in a coming log... watch out for that.
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I suspect the BD is about to mention this very scenario in a coming log... watch out for that.
There I go again-always at the cutting edge!!
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There I go again-always at the cutting edge!!
Yes, David, but are you safe with sharp objects? :o ;)
Guff: Pickwick and King of Striped are different crocus varieties, to my mind, the first has all over stripes whereas the King of Striped has stronger stripes on only three of the petals... but try searching Google for pix of these plants and you will soon discover that there is as much confusion wihth these two varieties as ther are with many others in commerce! You will see that for both types ther is a wide range of pictures given though not, funnily enough, an overlap between the two!
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David
I made the same mistake and thought they were doomed but underneath I found nice bulbs so I will save in the pot and see what comes next year. I do not take them up and repot them since they will have a dry summer here in Portugal anyway and I am to lazy to repot them and to be honest I do not understand why one should repot unless they are congested. ???
Joakim
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Joakim, it's good to know I am not alone in making mistakes!
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Maggie, yes I did Google, but that is were the problem was. They both looked the same to me, therefore I thought there were misnamed pictures, or that they are the same crocus. I had hoped someone had both and could post pictures, so I could see the difference.
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Hi Guff!
Sorry, but I've overlooked your question about Pickwick/King of the Striped! I have some "King of the Striped" corms, but they are virused and not worth seeing. Below a photo of "Pickwick" and a link to Vanengelen's homepage with a photo of "King of the Striped".
Yes, my tommi "Roseus" does set seed !! Good luck with your pollination games ;)
http://www.vanengelen.com/catview.cgi?_fn=Item&_recordnum=3118&_category=Crocus
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Thomas, thanks. I can see the difference now. I will have to check my giant crocus bank tomorrow. I planted 200 giants this past fall on the bank. I like the species much more, so many more flowers per corm. I have been putting Roseus pollen on most of the giants that are open. I also noticed Prince Klaus doesn't have any pollen, does it sets seed?
I have a tommy that is teal/aqua blue. I only see 3 of these in the bed. I will try to get a picture of it tomorrow, doubt my camera will capture it though. Any guess by going by the color?
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Prins Claus has defective pollen and mine have never set any seed.
And no guess for you tommy without a photo!
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Heavy rains here the other night. I didn't think my camera would be able to pickup the true color.
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Last update on giants on bank. It turned out pretty. I will have to add more in the fall.
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I had my brother take some pictures acouple weeks ago with his camera. Crocus are now all done flowering, I see some seed pods forming in other spots around the yard, none yet in the crocus holding bed. The pictures with the pine needles is one of my cycalmen beds, I put in around 25 Prince Klaus. I wanted to see how they did, before I put in more.
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I have been watching this crocus for a couple weeks now, very slow growing. I know it isn't a seed pod, since the crocus has never flowered. Curious what crocus it might be, any ideas?
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Guff, it is not unkown for some plants to have their flowers fertilised even though they have not "flowered" in the conventional sense....the flower is fully formed under ground and pollination process takes place even there ( there is name for this but I can't remember what it is... I mean a botanical name and not "the immaculate conception" !!) so I think that what you have there IS a seed pod.
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flowers fertilised even though they have not "flowered" in the conventional sense....the flower is fully formed under ground and pollination process takes place even there ( there is name for this but I can't remember what it is...
cleistogamous?
like sweet violets where there are flowers followed by seed pods, but also another crop of seed pods
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cleistogamous
Quite so, David, thank you!
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Maggie, thanks. I will keep an eye on it. Amazing, never thought about a flower underground, then making a seed pod. Reason I was watching this crocus, the leaves were so much different then everything else in the bed. I thought it was a vernus hybrid that was mixed in with the species, and was curious to see what it was.
The slow growth would suggest a seed pod, I guess I will find out sooner or later.
Thanks for the info.
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Hi Guff!
This looks like Ornithogalum, possibly umbellatum?.
I would recommend to cut the seed pods after flowering,
otherwise, they will become a weed in your crocus-bed.
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Viola pedata/pedatafida does this in its first year. I dumped a lot of young plants before I realised this. Thinking they were wrongly named and a real weed, seeding without flowers, only later realising the second year they flowered and after that you rarely got a seed.
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Ah, an Ornithogalum? I never thought of that... now I look at the pic again in daylight, i see what Thomas' younger eyes have seen... I believe he may be correct!
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We will see, Maggi!
Guff, please keep us in touch!
Here's a photo of my Ornithogalum in the lawn.
It's one of Grandma's heritage!
Can anybody confirm the name umbellatum?
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or perhaps that other opportunistic bulb, allium?
cheers
fermi
(about to leave the UK for home!)
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Have a good flight Fermi !
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I find with many violas that they flower and set no seed in spring then set seed without having flowered, in autumn. But V. pedata has never set any seed, any time. Darn it. It flowers well off and on though. V. pedatifida on the other hand, seeds about and is almost a nuisance, though pretty.
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Thanks everyone. I looked at some Star of Bethlehem in another part of my yard, looks like the mystery is solved. I will dig it up after it flowers, and place else wheres.
I'm seeing crocus pods around the yard, and some in the holding bed. I think I'm going to have a bumper crop this year.
When the seed pod pops up on the stalk-thingy, how long do you usually wait to pick? Last year I wrapped tinfoil around the pods, and waited until they started to break down, before I picked them.
Thanks for info.
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Some more unusual flowerings for Northern Gardens:
These plants were imported from the Southern hemisphere,
Crocus longiflorus albus
Crocus caspius
Crocus minimus albus
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They look great Thomas. Nice to see one of mine in there :)
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Here are some pics of Turkish croci. First three pics of C. aerius, photographed at Sogani Geçidi (2230m) in NE Turkey on May 15th. We found it again at Zigana Pass a couple of days later but there it was past its best. By the way, many Crocus anthers and styles at Sogani Geçidi (2230m) were eaten by something!
Perhaps this is done by the insect (what is it?) that you can see on one of the two Crocus biflorus pictures from the western part of the Palendoken Mts. Could this be ssp. tauri??
The last of the six pictures is also some form of biflorus, this time from near the tree line just west of Camlibel Gecidi, at about 2300m altitudes (between Ardahan Artvin). It was photographed on 8 May. Any idea of the subspecies?
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Lovely pictures Kees Jan. And beautiful variation in the C. aerius.
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Hi Kees, thanks for the wonderful photos of these Turkish crocusses!
I have heard of black beatles, enjoying crocus flowers for lunch, so maybe you found the culprit!
Sorry, I don't dare an ID of the unknown biflorus ssp only by photo. The only people who
might give you an exact ID are probably Kerndorff / Pasche!
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Hi Kees! these are very nice pictures. I have seen first time white aerius. I will take a few your photos
to my photo archives. It is important for me to know flowering time on the wild. That area is very interesting for me too. But too far!.
Your biflorus tauri is right. But your last biflorus is very strange. It is not known in the area. In the area
there are only biflorus artvinensis which has ony one strip auter petals. It might be also reticulatus ssp
reticulatus which live in the Caucasusia. If the corm is biflorus then it should be near to biflorus artvinensis
because biflorus group is very variable. For example where I live there is biflorus adamii. I have seen with one srtıp, with three strips, without strip or fully violet... No idea more.
I hope you have seen also colchicum szowitsi in the same area.!
Thanks to share them with us........
ibrahim.
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Kees! for the eaten anthers; The snails or a kind of snails. They like so much anthers, only anthers
not another parts. I have seen severel times in the act.
Your last biflorus also can be biflorus ssp tauri. I have seen stripped one also..
ibrahim..
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Kees, thank you for the nice crocus pics.
It's always a pleasure to see them growing in the wild.