Crocuses in the Southern Hemisphere - 2009

[Lesley Cox]

We had a beautiful day here Otto, chilly, about 14C high, but loads of sunshine. We have a fire on this evening. Did you get my note about Pere David's frit?

[Otto Fauser]

I have a few autumn-flowering crocus out at the moment.

The Crocus speciosus was collected in the Crimea Caucasus and is the largest-flowered Crocus in my collection. It is 11cm across when fully extended.

Cheers,

Otto

 Cr. pulchellus Michael Hoog (2)
 Cr. speciosus-c. Crimea- Caucasus
 Crocus goulimyi mani white
 Crocus robertianus

[Armin]

Otto,

wunderful crocus you have. The white pulchellus is a stunner. Amazing large size.

[Lesley Cox]

Lovely indeed, but aren't you talking to me Otto?

[fermi de Sousa]

Here's one of Otto's Crocus caspius that has come to live in Central Victoria


This is Crocus cartwrightianus grown from NARGS Seedex 2004, donated by Jane McGary,



and Crocus niveus from one of the Tassie Bulb Companies,

This pic confirmed my suspicion that the red-legged earth mites are back but hardly visible to the naked eye (especially when I don't wear my specs in the garden!)

cheers
fermi

[Gerry Webster]

Fermi - I wonder whether your Crocus cartwrightianus is this species. The style seems to divide some way up whereas in C. cartwrightianus it is said to divide well down in the throat. Mathew regards this as a diagnostic character. C. pallasii or C. asumaniae perhaps?

[tonyg]

Fermi.  Your C cartwrightianus seems to have depauperate anthers.  Is there any pollen??  I have a similar plant - how can it reproduce from seed??
Gerry - perhaps the shrunken anthers make the point of division of the style appear higher.

[Gerry Webster]

Tony - you are a good deal more observant than I am - I hadn't even noticed the anthers! But I was also influenced by the shape of the petals/flower which seems untypical (?) for C. cartwrightianus.

[tonyg]

A lot of things are atypical about this form, my first wonderings covered the Crocus oreocreticus option ... I even wondered about virus influences.

[Otto Fauser]

Fermi , here are a few more Crocus from my garden, including C .pallasii ssp . pallasii ,
 so you can compare it with your c. cartwrightianus.

 Cr. gilanicus
 Cr. banaticus
 Cr. speciosus
 Cr. pallasii ssp. pallasii
 Crocus cancellatus ssp.pamphyllicus

[Armin]

Otto,
beautiful pictures of autuum crocus. I like the clump of C. speciosus and the C. pallasii with the nicely darker center markings.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Nice batch Otto !!
We don't want to think about autumn here though... 

[Eric Locke]

We don't want to think about autumn here though... 
[/quote]

Certainly not.

Eric

[fermi de Sousa]

A lot of things are atypical about this form, my first wonderings covered the Crocus oreocreticus option ... I even wondered about virus influences.

Tony and Gerry,
sorry for the delay in replying; of course the fresh flowers are now gone, but I might dig the corm up later for more diagnostics! As the seed came from Jane McGary I had no worries about their authenticity but could this possibly be a hybrid? I might ask Jane about it.
cheers
fermi

[Paul T]

Howdy All,

I've finally been up to preparing some pics, so here are some Crocus that have been flowering over the last few weeks....

There is a good form of Crocus goulimyi.  Much rounder than my normal version that I have in the general garden here. 
Three different Crocus laevigatus that are still in flower at the moment here.  These are just pics of the individual flowers.... there are small clumps of the "original" one in flower in the crocus garden at the moment. 
Crocus mathewii is still in flower even now, and these later flowers are much more rounded than the earlier flowers, even on the same corm. 
This was the clump at peak performance of the Crocus niveus that I posted a pic of a while back under the "lilac form" name. 
Crocus ochroleucus, which I purchased a couple of years ago from a non-specialist nursery as speciosus albus which it most definitely is not. 
The clump of Crocus pulchellus flowering madly about a week or so ago.  Same clump as I posted weeks ago, and there are still about 3 flowers out on it.  They have done particularly brilliantly after the move to the crocus garden.

In the following message I'll include Crocus speciosus, a rather nicely stripey form that I had flower this year.  Only the one flower, so hopefully it is slowly recovering from the pots and will flower better next year.
And the last one I will post is a couple of Crocus serotinus ssp serotinus.  For some reason I was not expecting it to be white, but I don't quite know why.    A rather nice white though.

I should also mention that the Crocus tournefortii that I posted pics of a while back still has a flower or two after flowering brilliantly for so long.  And as I said in the "Evolution of a Crocus Garden" topic, there's been such a good result from so many of them this year .... it has been well worth the effort in making the garden, that is for sure.