Crocus February - 2009

[Lesley Cox]

Is the tricolor seedling in the plunge between pots Anne? I find they get everywhere and frequently have marks such as yours has, or often the zones of purple, white, yellow are less clearly defined, even merging altogether. They're all lovely tho'. Would be good in patches in the lawn I think.

[I.S.]

Anne your first Crocus with so big family! They looks to me as C. reticulatus subsp. reticulatus. There is no yellow sign in throat!
 

[tonyg]

The warm(er) weather has brought more crocuses into bloom - this lot of C sieberi sieberi have nice outsides. The C tommasinianus 'Claret ' from Thomas is a superb colour, thank you Thomas! Finally this self-sown C sieberi tricolour seems tp have something interesting going on at the petal tips. Maybe a partnership with tommasinianus 'Pictus'?

The dark tip thing is not unusual in Crocus sieberi, I'd say that is within the expected range of variation.  I have a nice form of C sieberi sieberi with purple tip markings like that.  I'll post a pic if I can find one later.

[arillady]

Could someone just let me know the simple rough differences between Crocus, colchicums and Sternbergias. I could grow one of each together to find out but with so many experts on this forum I thought I could get a quick reply rather than wait years.

[Lesley Cox]

Well to start with, sternbergias are always yellow or in the case of S. candida, white. So if it's pink or blue, it isn't a sternbergia.

Crocuses are corms, not bulbs, and so the storage organ is replaced each year by another or more than one. Bulbs - colchicums, sternbergias - are perennial storage organs.

Sternbergia flowers grow on short, visible stems while crocuses and colchicums have no stem as such, but tubes which come directly from the corm or bulb.

Colchicums usually (always?) have an oddly shaped bulb, with a sort of leg thing growing down into the soil and the growing tip and place where the roots come from are at the top of this leg bit (many erythroniums grow like this too).

The only yellow colchicum (so far as I know) is C. luteum.

Crocus belongs to the iris family while the others belong to the greater lily family, colchicum in a family of its own nowadays but still relatively close to Liliaceae.

Helpful at all? No doubt just about every Forumist will be able to give much better answers, and from the points of view of people with some botany.

It doesn't help that many people refer to colchicums as "autumn crocuses" especially since there are heaps of genuine autumn crocuses anyway.

[Tony Willis]

Lesley whilst I agree with most of what you say,I think colchicums make a fresh 'bulb' each year. The remains of the old one is usually shrivelled within the tunic.

[Lesley Cox]

Oh really? I didn't realize that. Thanks Tony. So are they not a true bulb then?

[BULBISSIME]

I agree with Tony : Colchicum is a corm, not a bulb.
Crocus ( Iridaceae ) : 3 stamens
Sternbergia, Colchicum ( Amaryllidaceae, Liliaceae - Colchicaceae ) : 6 stamens

Hera, you can found some good explainations :
http://delta-intkey.com/angio/images/colch850.gif
http://www.crocusbank.org/Saffron%20crocus%20morphology.jpg

and sorry but no link about Sternbergia 

[Thomas Huber]

Anne, your Crocus sieberi looks like biflorus, but Ibrahims observation about
the lack of yellow in the throat points indeed for C. reticulatus.
You caught the colour of tommi 'Claret' perfectly!

Pat, Colchicum and Sternbergia can be kept apart from Crocus when in
flower by their stamens like Fred mentions above.
After flowering Crocus have grass-like leaves up to maximum 1cm wide
with a white median stripe on top, while Colchicum and Sternbergia have
much larger and wider leaves.
Hope this helps.

[annew]

Dirk, you are quite correct - the label does say Crocus biflorus ssp.biflorus, I hadn't looked!

[Ian Y]

Could someone just let me know the simple rough differences between Crocus, colchicums and Sternbergias. I could grow one of each together to find out but with so many experts on this forum I thought I could get a quick reply rather than wait years.

Pat Lesley has give you a pretty good explanation and I showed a picture of a dissected crocus flower along side a colchicum which may help - you will find it here   Bulb log 42 2008    or, if this linkl doesn't work.... here....

http://www.srgc.org.uk/bulblog/log2008/151008/log.html

[tonyg]

Anne - missed the name on the big potful of striped crocus - assumed it was biflorus biflorus, that's what happens when you check the forum late at night
I agree with Thomas.  It could be Crocus reticulatus but it would be a remarkable performance to get such a fantastic potful 'by accident' and the shape and markings are very reminiscent of Crocus biflorus biflorus in its better forms.  A check of the inside of the flower will help, perhaps there is a faint yellow throat?

[Gerry Webster]

Could someone just let me know the simple rough differences between Crocus, colchicums and Sternbergias. I could grow one of each together to find out but with so many experts on this forum I thought I could get a quick reply rather than wait years.

Pat Lesley has give you a pretty good explanation and I showed a picture of a dissected crocus flower along side a colchicum which may help - you will find it here   Bulb log 42 2008 

According to Martyn Rix, Colchicum has corms, as does Erythronium. Both are in the family Liliaceae where true bulbs are common. Interestingly, the family Amaryllidaceae has neither corms nor root tubers & is the only family to have only one type of storage organ, the bulb, albeit bulbs of different sorts.

[Anthony Darby]

I thought a bulb was a compressed stem and that the layers were fleshy leaves which are replaced as the new bulb develops after flowering? New bulbs are formed from the terminal and lateral buds withing the original.

[Janis Ruksans]

I can't judge about subspecies name but it 100% is biflorus.
Janis