Crocus March 2009

[Mad]

Hi to you all!
I have only one pic for the moment, I hope you will like it 

[I.S.]

Simon, Belpınar pass is between Antalya and Muğla province. Last week I was around there. Sea side 15-19C just near on the mountains too much snow so couldn't see this crocus but I think it has many variable forms without striped.
Here are some photos from wildi
C. danfordiae Kütahya
C. chrysanthus Afyon (very cloase to Uşak )
C. flavus subsp. dissectus Afyon
C. antalyensis Muğla
And scene from Muğla

[annew]

Great pictures, Ibrahim. I especially like the C danfordiae.
Now a question - is it possible to successfully split and replant crocuses in growth? The ones I put into my grass have come up well but are nearly all the same colour! I have congested clumps of yellow and purple varieties, and I'd like to put them into the grass now while I can see where they need to go. Can it be done?

[tonyg]

Anne - Thomas has more experience of lawn plantings but until he chips in here's what I think!
You can do it but the fairly major root damage that is likely to occur will set the plants back for a year or two.  Damage to the roots now = smaller corms next year = less / no flowers.  I'd leave it until just as the leaves start to die back, this would minimise the damage.  You should still be able to see where to put them.

[I.S.]

Anne, I also agree with Tony. I usualy choice the first way wihout damage roots. But some times we have to choice the second way. For example in Uludağ 2600m. While these plants are just flowering in İstanbul sea level these plants already have been dried!

[annew]

The only problem with that is that the grass will be fairly long by then. I suppose I could hand cut patches to plant in.

[Tony Willis]

Ibrahim

lovely pictures,I am not surprised to see there is still a lot of snow up there.

[I.S.]

Tony, in your opinion what is the right time to see these flowers open in this altitute? I am sure that you know this area very well!

[I.S.]

Tonyg,
what I see in your crocus pages for C. flavus subsp. dissectus it looks more to C. graveolens!
Because I tryed to find one like that with so big stye in wild, last year in Balıkesir and this year in Afyon but I couldn't. am I wrong ? just for curiosity!

[Sinchets]

Simon, Belpınar pass is between Antalya and Muğla province. Last week I was around there. Sea side 15-19C just near on the mountains too much snow so couldn't see this crocus but I think it has many variable forms without striped.

Many thanks for your help Ibrahim. As I sit here watching the snow fall again, I can appreciate your impatience to be out there exploring. Simon

[Tony Willis]

Tony, in your opinion what is the right time to see these flowers open in this altitute? I am sure that you know this area very well!

Ibrahim
I have always been the first two weeks in May which has been a good time but on a couple of occasions this has been to late when there has been an early spring and the ground has already been burnt dry even at the top.The benefit usually has been that if it is already dry lower down it is possible to move higher and still see flowers. The reverse has also been true in that I visited E.Turkey near Dogubayazit  at that time of year twice and on the first it was a mass of flowers and on the second still three metres of snow

[Tony Willis]

my other two corms of Crocus gotenburgensis that have flowered. They are pelistericus x scardicus with the pelistericus being the seed parent. Clearly the yellow of scardicus must be the dominant colour.

[Martin Baxendale]

my other two corms of Crocus gotenburgensis that have flowered. They are pelistericus x scardicus with the pelistericus being the seed parent. Clearly the yellow of scardicus must be the dominant colour.

Still nice flowers, Tony. The other possibility is that the form of scardicus you have could be polyploid (e.g. a fertile tetraploid) which is contributing more genetic material to the cross and dominating the progeny that way. With other crocus species (e.g. chrysanthus x biflorus) the yellow and blue colourings seem to 'mix' without one or the other dominating, and others have had that result with this cross, so just a thought. Is your scardicus raised from your own collected seed, or seed from collected corms? It's always possible that someone selected out a strong, large-flowered form in the wild, which may have been polyploid.

This is the point where someone else tells me the yellow colour often dominates and it's nothing to do with polyploidy.   

[tonyg]

Tonyg,
what I see in your crocus pages for C. flavus subsp. dissectus it looks more to C. graveolens!
Because I tryed to find one like that with so big stye in wild, last year in Balıkesir and this year in Afyon but I couldn't. am I wrong ? just for curiosity!

Your local knowledge is better Ibrahim.  I have recently flowered a new accession of Crocus flavus ssp dissectus and had observed that it is not like the one on Crocus Pages.  Also when that one flowered at the same time as Crocus graveolens I could not tell them apart.  So I think you are right! 
A new version of Crocus Pages is in its infancy - when it 'goes live' I will have corrected the mistake.

Tony W - I like  your x Gotenburgensis better than some of the others I have seen!

[Sinchets]

Still nice though TonyW- what were both parents like- have they been posted here already? Have you ever selfed the C.pelistericus parent and had flowers from its progeny? I was  thinking along the same lines as Martin- but maybe if your C.pelistericus was from a population more 'prone' to be pale flowered, maybe the C.scardicus yellow genes are just overwriting these. I don't know how variable C.pelistericus is in the wild, but having seen a woodland full of C.veluchensis i know these give quite a wide range of shades. Speaking of which has anyone ever hybridised C.veluchensis in cultivation apart from suspected wild hybrids with C.sieberi?