Crocus September 2009

[Janis Ruksans]

My Ukrainian friend Dmitriy just returned from Caucasus mnt. and sent me CD with few pictures. I want to show you those beauties rarely seeable in nature and not more often in garden. This is subsp. scharojanii.
Janis

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wonderful pix Janis !
Thanks for showing them !

[Tony Willis]

Janis really interesting pictures,thankyou.

My first Crocus speciosus in flower today

[Janis Ruksans]

Two more pictures. Compare tips of flower segments. In subsp. lazicus (Turkey) they are rounded, in subsp. scharojanii (Caucasus) with prolonged tips very similar to those of vallicola.
Janis

[Andrew]

Two more pictures. Compare tips of flower segments. In subsp. lazicus (Turkey) they are rounded, in subsp. scharojanii (Caucasus) with prolonged tips very similar to those of vallicola.
Janis

I would be happy with either of them .

If anybody has some going spare, please feel free to contact me !

[udo]

Janis,many thanks for showing from Crocus scharojanii, a very interess theme.
I see in my flowers from Turkey ( Zigana Pass ) and W-Caucasus ( 2100m ) not a difference. My form from Turkey have larger bulbs and the leave is like vallicola.
The Caucasus form have leave without white stripe and smaller bulbs.
In the picture a bulb from Turkey, repotting in July this summer.

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis,many thanks for showing from Crocus scharojanii, a very interess theme.
I see in my flowers from Turkey ( Zigana Pass ) and W-Caucasus ( 2100m ) not a difference. My form from Turkey have larger bulbs and the leave is like vallicola.
The Caucasus form have leave without white stripe and smaller bulbs.
In the picture a bulb from Turkey, repotting in July this summer.

I haven't at present Caucasian form in my collection. All stock was eaten by rodents in early eighties (2000 corms!), no one left. At that time I hadn't subsp. lazicus. Comparing pictures, I found that Caucasian plants are paler in color and you can see this comparing both pictures of my last entry. The main differences between both subsp. are just in shape of flower segments and in size of corms (you are right - lazicus has larger corms) + lazicus sometimes is stoloniferous (I didn't saw such, my are not forming stolons) - see B. Mathew (I think he wrote about this in The Plantsman). I do not remember leaves of Caucasian form, so can't judge about them.
Janis

[Mike Ireland]

Found this strange Crocus kotschyanus(double) in the garden today.  Also Crocus banaticus.

Mike

[Boyed]

Janis,

Thanks for showing these wonderful photos of crocus scharojanii. Beautiful species! Dmitriy told me about his advantures, but he hasn't showed me the photos yet. By your post I now relatively made an idea about these beauties in wild.

Janis, I would like to know if those species increase vegetativley. To my question, Dmitriy said that he's seen some rare mall clumps of 2 or 3 plants in wild, but he was not sure if they were vegetative or seed generation.

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis,

Thanks for showing these wonderful photos of crocus scharojanii. Beautiful species! Dmitriy told me about his advantures, but he hasn't showed me the photos yet. By your post I now relatively made an idea about these beauties in wild.

Janis, I would like to know if those species increase vegetativley. To my question, Dmitriy said that he's seen some rare mall clumps of 2 or 3 plants in wild, but he was not sure if they were vegetative or seed generation.

C. scharojanii lazicus increase vegetatively, my old stock of scharojanii scharojanii was grown up from seeds and I didn't remember vegetative increasing. Seeds are set only after hand-pollinating and only few. Cross-pollination is essential. I think it is selfsterile, but possibly I'm wrong.
Janis

[mark smyth]

Mike my doubles never reappear the following year

This morning when I went out to the green house I found many broken Crocus stems. I thought a cat had been in until I saw the culprit. A huge queen bumble bee. Every flower it landed on fell over breaking close to the base. I had to catch it and put it out.

[Mike Ireland]

Mark
The double crocus is a first for my garden.

Mike

[Tony Willis]

Another Crocus vallicola in flower

[Andrew]

My pot of C. serotinus ssp. salzmannii 'El Torcal'.

[tonyg]

First crocus here is Crocus vallicola.  Nice warm sunshine for cross pollinating the flowers but that was last week!
The last one has longer wispy tips to the petals, typical for C vallicola.  One of the group of three is particularly sumptious