Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Crocus => Topic started by: Janis Ruksans on March 14, 2010, 01:17:44 PM
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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
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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
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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!
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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
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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! :D Thank you for sharing this journey with us.
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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!
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Didn't know our Post Office had an airline baggage section as well! ;D
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Mark, not white, not orange exactly leuco or creamy, but never red - orange like my last one.
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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
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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
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Last for this entry.
Janis
11 Colchicum szowitsii JJVV-020 -07
12 Colchicum szowitsii JJVV-020 -09
13 Crocus danfordiae JJVV-019 -02
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Further we turned back to coast searching for Kaan gec. We drove by new road three times there and back searching for village on map and road to desired place. Our navigator thought that we are airplane and recommended turn on rocky field. Finally we took single asphalted road in our direction and only on Kaan gec understood that village name is changed and now are different from that on map, due new road - road signs still not placed. But finally we were on desired place. Just on gec was only Cochicum crocifolium and the same Crocus biflorus as near Goksum. Further down after gec started yaila. This flat huge meadow was covered with yellow dots - millions and millions of Crocus chrysanthus, very uniform, pure golden yellow without any stripes on flower segments backs. After long search we found very few with creamy yellow flowers. Again on very wet spots was Colchicum szowitsii.
When road approximated end of yaila, where again road slightly went up, on roadside appeared the same Crocus biflorus subsp. and C. danfordiae. It was very interesting that I didn’t find spots where biflorus will be mixed with chrysanthus, but both where presented and both were growing together with danfordiae. No hybrids between biflorus and chrysanthus were observed there.
Further we followed quite difficult road by very deep gorges, serpentines of road with beautiful waterfalls on sides and lower by road building of new power-station. It turned quite dark, but we maid short rest-stop on quite open slope of pine wood. There were some crocuses out of flowers as altitude was only 860 m. By corm tunic it could be C. cancellatus or reticulatus (I hope that last), and we saw single plant with flowers - Cyclamen persicum. It was a little dark for picturing, but some impression you can receive from attached picture. Further we run down to coast and late evening we were back at our hotel in Erdemli with restaurant on opposite side of road.
Janis
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Last pictures for that day
Janis
Crocus chrysanthus JJVV-022 -05
Crocus chrysanthus JJVV-022 -08
Crocus chrysanthus JJVV-022 -09 + Colchicum szowitsii
Crocus chrysanthus JJVV-023 -06
Cyclamen persicum JJVV-027 -02
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Janis,
thank you for the marvelous pictures.
My favourite 04_Crocus_biflorus_JJVV-015_-07. Blue and white pedals with a blue stem - simply beautiful.
Is the inner flower completely white?
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Janis
Wonderful photos,
Amazing to see the colchicum growing in the water.
thank you.
I think the Cyclamen is C. pseudoibericum and not C. persicum.
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Janis
Wonderful photos,
Amazing to see the colchicum growing in the water.
thank you.
I think the Cyclamen is C. pseudoibericum and not C. persicum.
May be, I'm not specialist in Cyclamens, although it was pictured something out of C. pseudibericum area. One of our team specially searched for pseudibericum but we didn't find. He named this plant as persicum.
Janis
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Unusual to see Cyclamen persicum with such short flowers, Janis, I think that C. pseudibericum must have a wider range than was thought!
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Early morning we went to Silifke and after that by long way via Tashkent in Turkey (not Uzbekistan) to Beishekir with several stops on our not easy road. Some parts of road were not very comfortable with long distances without spots for exchange with front coming car.
At first stop (altitude only 730 m) all crocuses finished blooming but there still flowered Corydalis tauricola. Fritillaria elwesii only showed flower buds. There were two crocus species – I think that one was crocus vitellinus, another C. cancellatus, but I judged only by corm tunics.
On next stop at 1000 m altitude we met a marvelous landscape. There were plenty of different bulbs in full bloom. Crocus vitellinus was at end of blooming. Some flowers only in more shaded spots, protected from sun. But I never before saw in such abundance Hyacinthus orientalis in full bloom. There were nice groups of Hyacinthella heldreichii but for me most pleasant discovery was large clump of Anemone blanda with soft pink flowers, something resembling well known cv. ‘Charmer’ but in more soft shade, not easy to reproduce on photo.
Janis
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Other pictures
Janis
03 Crocus vitellinus JJVV-034 -05
04 Hyacinthus orientalis JJVV loc. 13 -07
05 Hyacinthus orientalis JJVV loc. 13 -10
07 Hyacinthella heldreichii JJVV-033 -02
08 Anemone blanda light pink JJVV-032 -02
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Janis,
thank you for the marvelous pictures.
My favourite 04_Crocus_biflorus_JJVV-015_-07. Blue and white pedals with a blue stem - simply beautiful.
Is the inner flower completely white?
I don't know, weather was rainy and flowers didn't opened. I not forced them. JJVV-015 -07 really is very impressive.
Janis
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Janis
Thanks for the marvellous Crocus. I hope to post many from my upcoming trip to Iran, but understand that it is already 29C in Teheran and we do not go until April 3rd. Hope we do not experience the rain you had, but also not to experience the drought we had in 2008.
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Ibrahim,
The new subspecies was just published in The Nordic Journal of Botany - Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus subsp. nov. (Iridaceae) from southwest Anatolia.
Janis, the Crocus in the wild are superb and the Colchicum szovitsii is great to see in its natural setting. I just now have a pot of seed germinating heavily -- something that has never happened with me when sowing Colchicum.
Aaron Floden
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Ibrahim,
The new subspecies was just published in The Nordic Journal of Botany - Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus subsp. nov. (Iridaceae) from southwest Anatolia.
Aaron Floden
From: .interscience.wiley.com Abstract:
Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus subsp. nov. (Iridaceae) from southwest Anatolia
Osman Erol, Mine Kocyigit, Levent Şik, Neriman Özhatay and Orhan Kucuker,
Correspondence to O. Erol (erol@istanbul.edu.tr) and O. Kucuker, Biology Dept, Botany Section, Science Faculty, Istanbul Univ., TR–34134 Suleymaniye, Istanbul, Turkey. – N. Özhatay, Pharmaceutical Botany Dept, Pharmacy Faculty, Istanbul Univ., BeyazIt, Istanbul, Turkey. – L. Sik, Biology Dept, Botany Section, Science and Art Faculty, Celal Bayar Univ., Manisa, Turkey.
Copyright Journal compilation © 2010 Nordic Journal of Botany
ABSTRACT
A new subspecies Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus subsp. nov. from western Turkey is described. It is characterized by rough papery, light brown corm tunics, leaves that exceed the flower at anthesis and are recurved, distinctly striped inner perianth segments and deeply branched pale yellow or white style. The karyotype of the new subspecies is presented.
Manuscript Accepted 3 November 2009
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I'm surprised no-one has fallen over screaming in ecstasy at that form of Iris persica. I'll do it now. 8)
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I'm surprised no-one has fallen over screaming in ecstasy at that form of Iris persica. I'll do it now. 8)
Just waiting for someone to come along who truly appreciated it, Lesley! ;)
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Ibrahim,
The new subspecies was just published in The Nordic Journal of Botany - Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus subsp. nov. (Iridaceae) from southwest Anatolia.
Aaron Floden
From: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123319398/abstract
Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus subsp. nov. (Iridaceae) from southwest Anatolia
Osman Erol, Mine Kocyigit, Levent Şik, Neriman Özhatay and Orhan Kucuker,
Correspondence to O. Erol (erol@istanbul.edu.tr) and O. Kucuker, Biology Dept, Botany Section, Science Faculty, Istanbul Univ., TR–34134 Suleymaniye, Istanbul, Turkey. – N. Özhatay, Pharmaceutical Botany Dept, Pharmacy Faculty, Istanbul Univ., BeyazIt, Istanbul, Turkey. – L. Sik, Biology Dept, Botany Section, Science and Art Faculty, Celal Bayar Univ., Manisa, Turkey.
Copyright Journal compilation © 2010 Nordic Journal of Botany
ABSTRACT
A new subspecies Crocus antalyensis subsp. striatus subsp. nov. from western Turkey is described. It is characterized by rough papery, light brown corm tunics, leaves that exceed the flower at anthesis and are recurved, distinctly striped inner perianth segments and deeply branched pale yellow or white style. The karyotype of the new subspecies is presented.
Manuscript Accepted 3 November 2009
This one Crocus quite well correspond with those two short lines available at present for me, but it was collected at Gundogmus in 2003. It has deeply divided white style, leaves exceeding flower, and inner segments can be (?) reported as striped. But Gundogmus can't be named as SW Antalya. it is in some distance E from Antalya. Unfortunately I didn't succeed to find more material there during this trip as Crocus blooming were over there and sheep eat most of leaves. May be next spring...
Janis
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Janis, thanks so much for your travelogue of this your latest trip so full of information and wonderful plants in spite of the difficulties. I'm wondering whether you have a link to a Google map of the region you visited it sounds so dramatic and beautiful? I have never visited Turkey but after Cliff's photos last year as well I have a hankering to go there one day.
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Following stop I planed at place where in 2003 I collected marvelous form of C. hittiticus, but road was changed and we missed exact place. Instead of this we visited quite cultivated although very stony land where for great surprise I saw Iris stenophylla blooming on ploughed field. It was quite unusual habitat for Juno. From other bulbs on the same field were Crocus vitellinus but in leafmold of spiny evergreen oak shrubs – some crocus with reticulated tunic out of flowers. Hope that it was C. hittiticus, not cancellatus.
The one of the best stops of our trip followed very difficult road by side of vertical rocks and very deep gorges. Soon after mountain pass we stopped near slightly cultivated small fields interrupted by low hilltops to check what there are growing (altitude 1500 m). And there it was – almost 100% new crocus – ver5y resembling C. biflorus subsp. crewei by color but with smaller flowers and more numerous leave. If in subsp. crewei (it grows far to west) usually are only 2-3 leaves, plant discovered by me had (5)6-7 leaves. It mostly grew on open flat spots with little other vegetation.
Another beauty on this hilltop was large clumps of Iris stenophylla in full bloom, mostly damaged by previous rains, but some quite fresh. Very uniform, only one clump had distinctly lighter flowers. I never before saw so many flowering size plants on same spot. May be it was for locality so difficult to reach and something less grazed due building of new dams and power stations.
Janis
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Between both stops we passed quite unusual house attached as swallow nest on high vertical cliff just on roadside with satellite dish on roof near chimney which smoke colored hill black. On other side of road is similar vertical cliff but only down in deep gorge.
Janis
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Few more pictures of this new crocus
Janis
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Janis realy lots of admirable crocuses :P :P :P
I think your vitellinus looks like graveolens around Silifke we don't have vitellinus. The leavers are to thiny for vitellinus isn't it? I have recievet a few corms from nord of Silifke I named them graveolens even full yellow!
For Crewei, on wild I couldn'd find any with more then 3 leaves! I am not very sure! but color of leaves looks like crewei. For biflorus subsp. they are near to tauri.
3. Leaves 4-9, 1.5-3.5 mm broad; flowers pale to mid lilac; bracts silvery-membranous (S., C, N, & N.E. Anatolia) j. subsp. tauri
That Chrysantus looks very good and biger than normal. I f you can tell me proximitly location for my own archives because it not known from that part and also for crewei? On my map or google I can't find Kaan gec, Kubbe gec, Göksum, !!
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Maggi when I occasionally speak to a group about irises, and tell them that Iris encompasses every possible colour from white to black, no-one believes me when I say it includes browns, greys, oyster shades and every possible permutation of those and greens. Janis's picture of Iris persica goes a long way to illustrating that. ::)
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Janis realy lots of admirable crocuses :P :P :P
I think your vitellinus looks like graveolens around Silifke we don't have vitellinus. The leavers are to thiny for vitellinus isn't it? I have recievet a few corms from nord of Silifke I named them graveolens even full yellow!
For Crewei, on wild I couldn'd find any with more then 3 leaves! I am not very sure! but color of leaves looks like crewei. For biflorus subsp. they are near to tauri.
3. Leaves 4-9, 1.5-3.5 mm broad; flowers pale to mid lilac; bracts silvery-membranous (S., C, N, & N.E. Anatolia) j. subsp. tauri
That Chrysantus looks very good and biger than normal. I f you can tell me proximitly location for my own archives because it not known from that part and also for crewei? On my map or google I can't find Kaan gec, Kubbe gec, Göksum, !!
Ibrahim,
Graveolens has more pointed petals and is reported as horribly smelling, I didn't noted any small and tips of flower segments are rounded - so I ideentified them as vitellinus, although I would be more pleased for graveolens, which I didn't find. I have several very nice graveolens in my collection.
It is new subsp, not tauri at all - tauri hasn't such type of color, and crewei is different in number of leaves. It is well isolated locality. I sent fresh leaves for DNA analysis to Erich Pasche and hope he will confirm, that this one is new.
At very end I will add map of my marshrout, although all those passes are on map, may be not easy to find by Google. Kaan gec on map is Kan gec, but in citu on roadsign - Kaan gec.
Janis
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We had still very log way ahead but before Taschkent we made short stop between two mountain passes - Belpinar gec. and Fašikan gec. It was really early as around were plenty of snow and soil extremely damp, but some crocuses flowered there, too. It was something different population from those seen before. Everywhere where only I saw Crocus chrysanthus growing alone it was very uniform. Those very few creamy about which I wrote before really was exceptional case. Here I finally saw population where Crocus chrysanthus was not accompanied with biflorus (may be it was too early for it) and had various grey or brownish stripes or stipling or basal design on yellow petals outside. Unfortunately it was too dark for pictures and I pictured only very few plants, so those color forms generally remained undocumented.
It was very dark and quite late when we reached Beishekir and slept in our usual Park Hotel. There were a pair of stops by the road to Beishekir but no one crocus was seen - all was grazed by sheep.
Janis
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Janis, very interesting to see the differences in brown feathering, and the one view with two flowers side by side, one without feathering and the other with bold feathering... most attractive.
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I was few days away for lecture at AGS Fritillaria group meeting in Wisley. I allmost miss it because I bought ticket in December and forget the date. I thought that my lecture will be following weekend. Late in night I opened internet and saw on screen message from Bob Charman - see you tomorrow... I run upstairs to check my ticket... Oh... So the night was passed finishing my speech and early morning I ran to Airport.
But now back to trip. On first entry I wrote that Gembos Yaila at our arrival was closed by snow. So we decided on way back to visit it again a week later. Landscape dramatically changed - most of snow on pass were gone and plenty of Crocuses in full bloom. But comparing with my visits there in previous years, still dominated yellow color of C. chrysanthus. Earlier blue ones of biflorus isauricus were surpassing. We saw incredibly bright form of Colchicum szowitsii, never before seen there. Most of Crocuses were hybrids between chrysanthus and isauricus. Unfortunately this "Natural Breeding Station Gembos" is living its last years. A lot of ground there are divided for new development and building of first summerhouses started... May be next spring will be some crocuses there but I'm not sure about future.
As outside again is heavy snowing (internet then works slowly), I will divide pictures in several entries.
Janis
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Following pictures.
Janis
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Still more pictures, most are hybrids Crocus biflorus isauricus x C. chrysanthus. One - pure white, may be pure chrysanthus and one lilac - may be pure subsp. isauricus.
Janis
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Last crocuses and first of Colchicum szowitsii.
Janis
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Last pictures from Gembos Yaila
Janis
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Wow Janis ! Wonderful Iris and Crocus !
These hybrids are stunning !!
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Janis,
mouthwatering pictures with breathtaking color combinations of chrysanthus x isauricus hybrids and colchicum szowitsii :o :o :o
It is a pity this wunderful location is actual threatened. :'(
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the dark purple hybrid blew my socks off wow wow and wow again.Now to look for my socks ;D
I mostly like 05, 17, 19
Janis
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the dark purple hybrid blew my socks off wow wow and wow again.Now to look for my socks ;D
I mostly like 05, 17, 19
Janis
Now I know that I have full-blown Crocofever (and there's no antidote)... my socks blew off too like Davey's! Janis, what a fantastic find. So why aren't more people deliberately hybridrizing with these species to create such uniquely beautiful colors and patterning?
I like #5 (unspeckled egg colors), #10 (speckled egg colors), #8 (4 completely different colors within centimeters), #12 - Shiraz purple, #17 & #19 orange and burnt copper, and I like 1-19 ;D
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A fabulous collection of hybrids Janis. Thanks so much for showing us these, and the possibilities for potential crocus breeders.
So pleased you just managed to get to your Fritillaria lecture. There would have been very unhappy people if you'd missed it. I'm also almost pleased I'm NOT going to the Conference in the UK next year because I was asked to speak to the Frit Group, they having been told I would be in the UK then. I can't imagine speaking about frits to a group that could include you, Janis, Jim Archibald, the Wallises, Brian Mathew and so many others all of whom know a millions times more than I do. Just as well I had to say thanks but have to decline. ???
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On Gembos yaila we met beautiful Scilla bifolia with large spikes. It just started blooming and full opened spikes were on most sunny spots where snow went away earlier. There are other bulbs, too, but it was too early for them.
On other side of ridge by road to Akseki we stopped on same slopes where we were at start of our trip. We saw some Galanthus elwesii, but its flowering was close to end. Crocus biflorus isauricus there was quite uniform. Very rare pure white specimens were found, as very few with black connectives. During all exploring of those slopes we found only 2 yellow flowering plants. What a great difference with opposite side of ridge (yaila)!
On road down to see we stopped at small family restaurant on bank of over flooded river. There we got superb salmon trout grilled in grape leaves and the best salad during our trip + true mountain yogurt. This was our best lunch during trip at very moderate price. For four persons we paid only 40,- Euro (inclusive 5 bottles of Efes-bier for three of us).
Janis
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Night we passed in our usual Lemon Hotel on opposite side of Antalya and next day went up in direction to Altinyaka to continue search for Crocus antalyensis. I still never saw it blooming in wild, although I collected few corms several times when it was out of flowers.
Our first stop was on place where some years ago I got one or two corms of Crocus antalyensis and saw my first Romulea crocea blooming in wild - 2 or 3 flowers. Now the extremely wet (really damp, partly covered by water) meadow in wettest spots was covered by beautiful golden flowers of Romulea, by distance resembling crocuses. But… from searched C. antalyensis there were only few small leaves.
Next stop was something fur5ther by side road where some years ago I saw beautiful Crocus biflorus blooming between small rock openings on very steep slope. It is some mystery. I well remember where I turned, where I looked for crocuses and I think, I collected something - but this place isn’t in my diaries, there is no crocus from that place in my collection registered. May be I didn’t find there something?
But this trip is successful. There finally I saw C. antalyensis in full bloom and in some variability. As in other localities it grew inside shrubs. Flowers were of traditional light blue color, but I saw few with dark lilac flowers, too. There were cancellatus lycius (out of flowers of course) and between all - 1 pcs of C. biflorus (out of flowers).
Next stop were for pictures of Cyclamen trochopteranthum, beautiful tiny plant growing on rocks. It was in full flowers. Another beauty from there - Galanthus gracilis was out of flowers and I saw only a pair of wilted flowers. Few yellow C. flavus dissectus still were in bloom and there I started to think than may be plant offered last year by Paul Christian as “antalyensis yellow form” really is this form of C. flavus growing sometimes in mixed populations with C. antalyensis.
Janis
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Last pictures
Janis
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As last my entry about this trip I want to show you my friends, taking part in trip.
Vaclav is famous lily hybridizer (in past) and Cyclamen lover now
Jirko is nature lover, knowing everything about trees and shrubs
Vladimir is professional photographer - all three are from Czech Republic
and - I - Janis from Latvia
On the last picture - our marshrout. Abbreviation JJVV derived from our names in alphabetic order Janis, Jirko, Vaclav and Vladimir
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Janis - a magnificent report with some beautiful plants (and people!) illustrated. Thank you for taking the time to share so much with us.
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I enjoyed your journey very much Janis and almost felt I was travelling with you. BUT I didn't get cold and I didn't get wet-that's my sort of travelling.
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Thanks Janis for showing us this trip and the wonderful plants to be found. You have wetted my appetite at just the right time, because in about 3 weeks time a few of us from this forum make a trip to Antalya. Gembos Yayla is on our itinerary, so I hope that the plants will still be in flower.
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Janis a great trip with wonderful pictures,thankyou
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Janis very nice plants, very nice diary, thank you very much for showing us. I start to dream for next year :o :o
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Janis
fascinating photos, i think you were lucky to find all in peak time.
it seems that all bulbs in the Eastern Mediterranean are blooming much earlier this year.
Amazing variation of hybrids!!!
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Great report Janis !!
Thanks you so much for showing us all these hidden treasures !!