Description
Small, elongated bulbs shaped almost like an inverted “V”, give rise to clusters of miniature pastel pink blooms in autumn. There are one to four, 4cm flowers per shoot and larger corms will have at least two shoots. The flowers are made with the tips of the emerging, 3-4, narrow, shiny green leaves in September and October (and rarely into November). Autumnal leaf emergence along with autumnal flowers in Colchicum is quite an unusual feature in the genus.
A distinctive and very lovely dwarf species. Excellent for plunged-pot cultivation under alpine glass where its small corm size means quite a few can be packed into a pan, but also good in a raised bed of dwarf bulbous subjects where it will gently increase below ground. The small corm size means that they can be planted quite closely, for a good floral effect. Hardy here over several years and one of my favourite miniature, autumn species.
This is genuine stock, raised here and it is is traceable to one of the original collections made by Eriche Pasche (Pasche 73/8) at 900m near the ruins of Termessos, N.W of Antalya, in S.W. Turkey, at a time when it was un-named and simply called “sp. Termessos*. We received this directly from Erich in the summer of 1980. It is reputed to grow also in Rhodes, where it is also said to be extinct!
Named for Turkish botanist Professor Turhan Baytop and his wife Professor Asuman Baytop hence the plural ending of –iorum in the name of Colchicum baytopiorum.
