Crocus additions

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 09:55:30 PST
I have added photos of some crocuses in the wild to the wiki, which can be 
seen by referring to the Fall Blooming Crocus subsection of the Crocus page 
under Photos and Information.

The species added are C. goulimyi, C. mathewii and a probably hybrid of it 
with C. pallasii, and C. wattiorum.

When I was editing it I noticed Mark McDonough's statement that C. 
tournefortii is probably the most beautiful fall crocus, so I suggest Mark 
take a look at C. wattiorum! John Lonsdale grows this rare and recently 
described species and has photos of it on his Edgewood Gardens website, the 
latest version of which is very easy to access even with my slow connection 
-- thank you, John.

Other crocus species I saw on my recent trip to Greece and TUrkey were C. 
boryi, C. cancellatus, C. niveus, and C. biflorus ssp. melantherus. Many of 
the C. niveus in the Peloponnese were the "blue form", with pale lavender 
outer tepals, rather than the pure white form more familiar in cultivation. 
I find this blue form comes pretty true from seed here. C. boryi was so 
common in Greece that I mean to try it in the open garden -- I've been 
cherishing it in the bulb frame.

Back at home it is in the mid-20s F today but the cold snap should be brief 
and the bulbs should be fine, seedlings having been brought into the 
solarium a couple of days ago. My last-ditch maneuver against the field 
mice, fitting wire mesh over a whole section of crocuses in pots, seems to 
be working; the flowers are poking up through the mesh, but on the other 
hand, the weeds are inextricable. For the latter problem I'll need a 
long-nosed tool such as a hemostat to reach through the wire and grab the 
weeds at the base.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA




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