Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Crocus => Topic started by: biodiversite on January 31, 2007, 11:19:14 AM
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Hi everybody
Please could you identify this crocus ? It is a botanical one received from Czech Republic some yeards ago as Crocus vallicola, which is not. An idea ? It is flowering now...
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Hello, "biodiversite", welcome to the forum. Have you a human name we can call you ?
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Hello Biodiversite (do you have a real name, too?)!
It's not easy to identify from your photo alone, but you are completely right - it's not vallicola!
Could you please post a photo of the outer petals and - more important - one of the corm!
There are lots of blue Crocus in trade looking similar by flower but different by the corm!
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well, in France on forums we only use pseudos as protection, but you could say only Bio, it's shorter ;).
Here is the photo of the outer petals. For the corm, we have to wait to this summer...
In my collection the more similar is Crocus aerius, but which flowers in March only (to give you an idea, in my garden, it's the end of C. imperati and the beginning of C. vitellinus, graveolens and chrysanthus).
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Still not easy, Bio!
From flower shape and colour I would say it's Crocus vernus, but the leaves don't fit
with the plants I have. Generally C. vernus has very broad leaves.
Maybe it's a very dark form of C. versicolor or maybe veluchensis - sorry, seems like
I can't help you! Maybe Tony or someone else has an idea?
In which part of France do you live?
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BIO wrote:well, in France on forums we only use pseudos as protection, but you could say only Bio, it's shorter
Forgive my question, when you may hide you email address if you wish,is that not protection? Why would you want also to hide your name?
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From flower shape and colour I would say it's Crocus vernus, but the leaves don't fit
with the plants I have. Generally C. vernus has very broad leaves.
Nevertheless, it's true hat on the Alpinehouse site, it's seems that leaves could be not so wide : I'll see when they will more develop
Maybe it's a very dark form of C. versicolor or maybe veluchensis - sorry, seems like
I can't help you! Maybe Tony or someone else has an idea?
the red style and the ledge outer strips could give C. versicolor, maybe...
In which part of France do you live?
South east in the Alps, near Grenoble.
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Forgive my question, when you may hide you email address if you wish,is that not protection? Why would you want also to hide your name?
Well, France is the land all over the world where there is the maximum of different family name, numerous for only a very little number of persons. That leads to the fact that it is very easy to localise a person with a rare name... And if I love bulbs, I love turtles too, that they have a very important value :-[.
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No one would wish to compromise your security , "Bio" and you give reason for a valid concern. You will forgive us if we prefer to address Pierre or Chantal rather than Bio ! ;D :P
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thanks. Sorry for my english, I wanted to say tortoises and not turtles :-\
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No problem , I think we all understood. Fascinating creatures, I was lucky enough to keep lots when I was small in North Africa. My Father's men used to bring them for me from places where they ( the Tortoises) had become stuck or unsafe, and we had a big, protected garden where they could live and grow strong. A good way to learn more about them and fun, too. It saddens me that so many are still brought to this (UK) and other countries still for the pet trade and die in the process. Some people are breeding them successfully in captivity, of course, so some are available quite legally here.
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in France too. I'm legalized for the tortoise breeding.
For North Africa, see the Romulea section Identification, it comes from an area where there is still wild tortoises, but Morocco suffers from his increase of population, and plants and tortoises will be victims of this process :-[
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Welcome Bio - You have a very beautiful crocus! I think the corm tunic that Thomas asks about will be papery but we will have to wait for this. Although the flower is similar to some Crocus vernus I do not think your plant is this. In some ways it reminds me of some forms of Crocus biflorus but the lack of a yellow throat suggests some other taxon or perhaps a hybrid. More photos please, when the flower is wide open.
I like your pictures on the 'plantes' forum, some very nice iris you grow :)
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Welcome Bio - You have a very beautiful crocus! I think the corm tunic that Thomas asks about will be papery but we will have to wait for this. Although the flower is similar to some Crocus vernus I do not think your plant is this. In some ways it reminds me of some forms of Crocus biflorus but the lack of a yellow throat suggests some other taxon or perhaps a hybrid. More photos please, when the flower is wide open.
If the sunday is sunny, you'll have new photos next week !
I like your pictures on the 'plantes' forum, some very nice iris you grow :)
Thanks. Actually irises of the group reticulata don't have any problem to flower in my garden. I hope I'll have a lot of Iris histrio wild strain seeds to swap this summer. I'll show you the bestest reticulatas forms, as 'Kuh-e-Abr' or Iris pamphylica ;)
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Bio, I've seen these plants last year in the Alpes Maritimes.
The photo shows, that the young leaves are folded and
become wider when getting older....
Crocus vernus ssp albiflorus
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Fine photo Thomas ! Well, I'll see with precision the leaves.
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Hello Bio,
your Crocus is possibly Crocus aerius, he growing with Crocus vallicola
in NE-Turkey.
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I too wonder about C aerius. I have seen material from Gothenburg BG which was very differently coloured (pale with some stripes) but it is said that this taxa is sometimes confused with C biflorus ssp pulchricolor in cultivation. C biflorus ssp pulchricolor is usually coloured quite similarly to your plant Bio - but the flower shape is subtly different.
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It is now illegal to trade in wild tortoises. They are now bred and cost quite a bit. My tortoise is Scottish born and bred.
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Anthony wrote:It is now illegal to trade in wild tortoises.
Quite so, Anthony, it is illegal to trade in many things, sadly that is not enough to prevent many people from doing it. And while the illegal trade in plants, for instance, may be deplored, at least there is not the suffering that is inflicted on the wild animals and birds that are trapped and traded around the world.
I am delighted your tortoise is Scottish and I am pleased that there are people like Bio who are breeding such creatures legally to help the situation.
Now, if we can only address the plight of the native Haggis....... ;) 8)
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Then, C. aerius was my first idea, but in my garden plants received as C. aerius are even not in buds...
For tortoises, they are 2 main problems :
- in the wild, the destruction of the biotope : it's a problem all over the world, in Morocco and in France too...
- in captivity, there is a great loose of biodiversity, as people breed without distinction different strains and possibles undescribed taxa of tortoises. For example, in France, there are still 2 different populations, one in Var and one in Corsica. Both are for science only Eurotestudo hermanni. Though, many people breed them one strain with the other, but science is very late... How to consider as the same taxon tortoises separated for thousand years at least in the case of an anthropic origin in Corsica, and millions years if not ? Moreover, there are some (tiny.. it's true) differences between the 2 : for example, males of the corsican strain have a trapezoïd shape, the varoise strain is ovale, etc. Nevertheless, even in France where their differences are known, we have numerous hybrids... And what to think about reproduction of E. hermanni of french origin in all other countries...
It's the same problem for tortoises from Maghreb : there is in Morocco nowadays 4 taxa described, and the reality is probably 7 or 8 different taxa, tortoises of Algeria are quasi unknown, etc. And all over Europe, they are usually crossed as "Testudo graeca" :(...
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Tony Goode has an excellent site on the web describing and illustrating species crocus.
Does anyone know of anything similar for the hybrids and cultivars?
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Thomas is working on a book... we'll just have to be patient.... it will be worth the wait, I promise!
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Yes please, may I order ours now :D
Thomas, are you listening? M
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YES!!! ;D
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Thomas, I'm looking foreward to it.
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You can be sure, it will need lots of time until I've finished.
The German version is 630 pages now, but I don't have
the time to put it in English :-[
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Friends, it may be quicker for us to learn German, it is not too difficult. Besides that project would be good for us!
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Maggi, it might be easy for you as you have lived so many years in Germany!
But I think German is a very difficult language!
What if you do the translation for me ::)
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My dear Thomas, if only I felt my skill was sufficient for this task then I would gladly translate for you but I think you would rather that your most excellent work was understandable in German and English! :P With me, there could be no guarantee of that. ??? I will work harder to improve, since I am out of practice, and who knows, perhaps we might work together ? I think there will be someone reading this who is more capable than I am, you may get a better offer? ::)
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Maggi, don't put your German down, before I have heard you talking!
Working out this together with you would be great, but not in next future :-[
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Thomas, it is MANY MANY years since I was speaking German every day :P
Reading it is another matter, much simpler!
We have many years ahead of us, I believe, so there will be time to do this work later !!
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Would someone post a picture of the true Crocus 'Lady Killer'? Is it indeedCrocus chrysanthus?
I ask as a good friend wrote today: "My objection to some books carelessly putting it into chrysanthus comes from my semi-classical education where chrysos means gold. Hence in the early crude classifications the yellow group was chrysanthus and the blue-white ones into biflorus; this has been immeasurably refined during the past 50 years as you see. It seemed obvious that ‘Lady Killer’ belonged into the old lumped biflorus, lacking any yellow. So whenever I saw ‘Lady Killer’ in bulb catalogues labelled a variety of chrysanthus I always said “bleep!” I hope you work out why."
johnw
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I planted these crocuses last autumn from supermarket's Crocus botanical mix -bag. They are some sort of Crocus chrysanthus (?), something very common and cheap most likely, but does anyone have any idea what cultivars they might be?