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JanisGreat to see your beautiful crocus both en masse and close up.I have grown many clones of Crocus sieberi ssp sieberi for years but I have not noticed variation in the markings from year to year. Seedlings are different from their parents but this is what we might expect. The special one you show 'from your english friend' is lovely, different from Hubert Edelsten as I grow it and I think yours is better!The malyi x is very nice but how do you tell it is not Crocus vernus ssp vernus? I have some forms of this which are quite similar.
Janis - the C sieberi Cretan Snow seedlings are interesting. Some (most?) have a paler colour purple for their markings. Almost all the C sieberi sieberi that I have seen has dark purple marking. Is this pale colour unusual? Or could this be some hybrid influence from other subspecies of C sieberi? I like them anyway The Crocus aerius is magnificent. I have the same form and so far it seems vigorous increasing by corm and seed I am not sure about the brown Iris ..... I like them blue
... Cretan Snow started from single bulb collected by my Czech friend in Crete and sent to me as Crocus sp. At that time it was the single plant of subsp. sieberi and was grown in greenhouse. All other subsp. of sieberi I grew only outside then. Surprisingly - it turned selffertile and set a lot of seeds after handpollination with own pollens. Seedlings for the first time bloomed in spring 2008 and those are on picture.C. aerius is variable, here attached picture with another stock - KPPS-9301 - it is very variable but all have starry white zone around throat, so characteristic to aerius.Janis
Thanks Gunilla for clearing the throat colour of your mystery crocus - so it's C. vernus.Jim, the flower height was judged simply by noting that Gunilla's plant is flowering on a very short stem, while true 'Herald' is a very large chrysanthus cultivar with a different flower shape. If I say throat colour I mean the OUTER throat-colour of Gunilla's plant. True Herald, as seen in the New-Plantsmen article 3/97 by Johann van Scheepen and in my garden, has a dark outer-throat colour. Your first plant looks like Herald, except the brighter throat, but your second photo surely isn't Herald - perhaps a seedling?