Crocus September 2009

[pehe]

Nothing special, only Crocus banaticus and C. kotschyanus.

Gerd

But beautifully anyway!

Poul

[Janis Ruksans]

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.

Two pictures of true kotschyanus x ochroleucus (from last year).
Janis

[Thomas Huber]

Janis, thanks for the additional info re gilanicus x autranii. Everything points for autranii as the
other parent - corm position in the soil, soft yellow dots in the autrani throat,
the phylogenetic tree (thanks Gerry). Now let's hope, that your hybrid increases better than the original autranii.

Re kotschyanus x ochroleucus: Janis, is that your own cross, or did you buy the corms elsewhere?

Anthony, it is still unclear whether the plant sold as tournefortii Albus and boryi are different
or not. A look at the phylogenetic tree shows, that both species , along with laevigatus, are nearly the same.

Nice clumps Gerd 

[Alex]

So, just to be clear, does normal autranii ever have any yellow in the throat? Mine from Janis has very, very faint yellow marks. I'll post a picture later today when it's more open.

Alex

[Gerry Webster]

Anthony, it is still unclear whether the plant sold as tournefortii Albus and boryi are different
or not. A look at the phylogenetic tree shows, that both species , along with laevigatus, are nearly the same.

According to the phylogenetic tree C. boryi & C. tournefortii (together with C. laevigatus) are sibling species. According to BM, members of a north Cretan population of C. tournefortii can be white but are distinguishable from C. boryi by the flowers remaining open at night & by the pubescence of the filaments - strongly pubescent in the former but only minutely papillose in the latter. Matters are complicated by the existence of the putative hybrid tournefortii x boryi which in my very limited experience is white but otherwise intermediate in character. I have had seedlings from one such plant & while one was typical tournefortii the others were similar to the parent or close to boryi. When they come into flower I’ll try to get some photos.

[Thomas Huber]

Alex, Brian Mathew doesn't mention these yellow dots in his Monograph,
but he only had limited access to living material of this rare plant.
So it's possible that in the wild some plants have and some don't have yellow,
just like their relatives vallicola and suworowianus. Same goes for gilanicus
which is also present in cultivation from just one single collection in the 60's.

[Alex]

Thank you, Thomas

Alex

[Janis Ruksans]

Janis, thanks for the additional info re gilanicus x autranii. Everything points for autranii as the
other parent - corm position in the soil, soft yellow dots in the autrani throat,
the phylogenetic tree (thanks Gerry). Now let's hope, that your hybrid increases better than the original autranii.

Re kotschyanus x ochroleucus: Janis, is that your own cross, or did you buy the corms elsewhere?

Anthony, it is still unclear whether the plant sold as tournefortii Albus and boryi are different
or not. A look at the phylogenetic tree shows, that both species , along with laevigatus, are nearly the same.

Nice clumps Gerd 

Re kotschyanus x ochroleucus - I baught it from Antoine Hoog in France.
Janis

[Janis Ruksans]

So, just to be clear, does normal autranii ever have any yellow in the throat? Mine from Janis has very, very faint yellow marks. I'll post a picture later today when it's more open.

Alex

Today checked all flowers of autranii. They now are in full bloom and I found that they are slightly variable in purple shade and few has very light yellow marks at base. Such variation is very normal. I repeat - my corms are not clone but all are seed raised.
Janis

[Anthony Darby]

Anthony, it is still unclear whether the plant sold as tournefortii Albus and boryi are different
or not. A look at the phylogenetic tree shows, that both species , along with laevigatus, are nearly the same.

According to the phylogenetic tree C. boryi & C. tournefortii (together with C. laevigatus) are sibling species. According to BM, members of a north Cretan population of C. tournefortii can be white but are distinguishable from C. boryi by the flowers remaining open at night & by the pubescence of the filaments - strongly pubescent in the former but only minutely papillose in the latter. Matters are complicated by the existence of the putative hybrid tournefortii x boryi which in my very limited experience is white but otherwise intermediate in character. I have had seedlings from one such plant & while one was typical tournefortii the others were similar to the parent or close to boryi. When they come into flower I’ll try to get some photos.

Thanks for that folks. The flowers close at night, so looks like C. boryi?

[Alex]

As I said I would, here's a picture of my C. autranii with very faint yellow markings, in fact almost imperceptible on this pic. Also a C. gilanicus and a nice trio of Crocuses from Janis (the above two plus C. vallicola. I also have a big pot of vallicola from another source which flowers much later, well into Oct. last year).

Alex

[Gerry Webster]

Thanks for that folks. The flowers close at night, so looks like C. boryi?

Or the hybrid C. tournefortii x boryi. If memory serves, this also closes at night. I'll check when my own plants come into flower.

[Janis Ruksans]

One of my "workers" - bumble bee pollinating Crocus serotinus subsp. salzmannii. Nights became cool and every day more and more crocuses start flowwering. Yesterday first blooms opened C. banaticus 'First Snow' and C. vallicola from Zigana pass in Turkey.
Janis

[Tony Willis]

Crocus hadriaticus from two different areas and a Crocus serotinus ssp salzmannii

Crocus hadriaticus from Parnassus
crocus hadriaticus from Itea
Crocus serotinus ssp salzmannii from Spain Zahara

[Tony Willis]

my first Crocus mathewii to open.it is a lovely lilac colour and quite robust.The colour on the first picture is not accurate but shows the inner markings