Description
A species which has remained little-known in cultivation despite being described as long ago as 1882 by Boissier. (Colchicum decaisnei Boiss Fl. Orient. 5: 157 1882).
It has quite a small corm, seldom over 4cm long, and this is quite squat and covered with a membranous or subcoriaceous tunic, unlike the related C. troodii (papery tunic) with which it has been frequently confused in literature (including Flora of Turkey vol. 8).
The flowers are borne in Autumn, from August to November in the wild, but more usually in September and October in cultivation and there are up to 15 flowers on each corm, double this when a particularly large corm makes two shoot and thus two flower clusters. The flowers have yellow anthers and narrow, spidery petals which can be almost white, to pale pink with some flesh tones worked in or even a darker pink-purple. The plants shown here are from our stock. They are not tessellated in any way. In the cooler days of late autumn, they are long lasting.
The leaves, which follow along later are slightly channelled towards their base and usually have slightly undulate margins. (troodii has flat, hardly twisted leaves)
A native of pinewoods and rocky meadows in Southern Syria, Lebanon, Israel and parts of Turkey, ranging in the wild from sea-level to 2,000m we tend to keep this one potted under glass or planted out under glass., but this is more a desire not to expose it to the winter elements than any known tenderness. We have no basis to suppose it not to be hardy other than where it grows coupled with a desire not to risk the theory. We use a well-drained, loam based compost, dry in summer.
