Crocus September 2009

[Janis Ruksans]

I have Cc. serotinus clusii and ochroleucus open in the bulb house.

Anthony,
I'm attaching two pictures of true ochroleucus - one from John Lonsdale, another mine. Note the stigmatic branches!
Janis

[Thomas Huber]

I believe there is a stock in commerce of  C. medius morphologically similar to Thomas' plant (i.e., different to the common 'Dutch' form) which goes under the cultivar name of 'Millesimo' but I don't know who supplies it. Maybe Thomas or Tony know? The Crocus Group has distributed seed of this 'wild' form from relatively recent collections made by David Stephens  &  Mike Salmon used to distribute similar plants from collections he made  with Peter Bird. I have plants derived from both sources, though no sign of growth yet. The ordinary, commercial form of C. medius is an intriguing plant & I would love to know something about its origin.

Gerry, Crocus medius Millesimo is sold by Dirk Schnabel. In my opinion it's the same plant as the
virused Dutch form - except that it's virus-free, which makes it looking much better and stronger
than the virused Dutch form.

Lesley, the medius on the photo above is from the same stock as the seeds I've sent you in 2006.

This year I had a good seed set on my stock, but didn't find the time to send them to the Crocus
group (even no time to send a request). Hopefully next year I will have a good portion of seeds
for all the CG members.

Janis, what makes you think your hybrid is gilanicus x autranii? Neither gilanicus nor autranii have
the yellow dots in the throat. Kotschyanus is in the same series and has the yellow dots, so
can't it be true that kotschyanus (cappadocius?) is the other parent?

Dom, you have a good eye - I agree with you about Anthony's plant that it's probably tournefortii
Albus and surely not ochroleucus. Janis, the Lonsdale form looks like the standard Dutch trade form
while the second seems from a wild source.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

One day away from the forum and 3 pages full of magnificent Crocus pix and Crocus information !
What a great forum this is 

Thanks everybody !
Thomas, good to see you back in full swing ! 

[dominique]

First to bloom in the open garden, Crocus tournefortii

[Anthony Darby]

I'll check the origin of this white crocus and see if I can see where the mistake was made.

[Tony Willis]

some more in flower today
Three different collections of Crocus speciosus. The first shows the problems of not enough light at this time of year.Although we have had no rain for a week the sky has been totally cloudy and dark. I sometimes wonder if the autumn flowering ones are worth the space here.

Crocus speciosus x3
Crocus asumaniae
Crocus hadriaticus

[Andrew]

Tony, I'm sure I could find some space for a few more Autumn ones .

From my greenhouse C. pallasii ssp. pallasii.

[Janis Ruksans]

Thomas,
Problem is that seed parent is C. gilanicus, so one gene complete is known. Pollen parent must be autranii as flowers looks exactly as autranii but yellow spots. There are 3 seedlings in pot, only one of them has those yellow spots, one has almost invisible spots, in the third they are absent but in other aspects all three looks identical. Corms are positioned horizontally as in both gilanicus (not allways) and autranii. It would be very easy if combination of 3 species could be possible in the first generation, but it isn't possible even theoretically. From other side gilanicus and autranii are quite close relatives of kotschyanus so may be yellow spots are hided in genes of one or both. I haven't in home phylogenetic tree so I can check how close relatives they are only tomorrow when I will go to my office. By the way - suworowianus has forms with and without or almost invisible yellow spots at base. May be such could be found between autranii and gilanicus, too. The same you can see on attached picture of vallicola. All those vallicola's come from same locality in Turkey. I will try to receive second generation seeds of this hybrid and then could be greater splitting observed clearing parentage.
Janis
P.S. I very hoped to receive vallicola's from Russian Caucasus this autumn but my friends didn't find them. Possibly some of you have such and can spare to me some corm next autumn?

[Andrew]

I haven't in home phylogenetic tree so I can check how close relatives they are only tomorrow when I will go to my office.

Janis, if you mean the DNA tree as in the Plantsman March 2009 page 53, CC. gilanicus and autranii are on the same branch along with C. scharojanii.

[Gerry Webster]

Janis & Thomas - I have just looked at the phylogenetic tree. gilanicus & autranii  are sibling species but  kotschyanus is more distantly related.

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis & Thomas - I have just looked at the phylogenetic tree. gilanicus & autranii  are sibling species but  kotschyanus is more distantly related.

Many thanks for information.
Here you can see two seedlings of this cross in same pot. Pictured few days ago when third flower didn't opened. You can see that bases are different. But only now I found that in one pot between pure autranii with pure white bases one has slightly yellow spots. I'm attaching this picture, too. Of course - it is possible that between pure autranii could be some hybrid made by bees as autranii I'm generally multiplying by seeds. I'm handpollinating those flowers, but they are not isolated so bees can add some pollens, too
Janis

[Armin]

Dominique,
nice clump of C. tournefortii

Tony,
love your bicolor speciosus CR503.

Gerry and Janis,
thank you - never stop learning...

Today my fast growing C. speciosus -Aino- opened flower.
Another shot appeared this morning

[Anthony Darby]

I checked the pot, and as usual, read the label in the next pot. The white flower is supposed to be Crocus boryi?

[mark smyth]

Does anyone have a photo of kotschyanus x ochroleucos? The 'official' reply on mine is there is hardly any difference between kotschyanus and the hybrid.

[Gerdk]

Nothing special, only Crocus banaticus and C. kotschyanus.

Gerd