Description
This has spring flowers, from January onwards under alpine glass to March outside. The flower colouring is quite variable. In all forms the petals are a soft violet shade. In most plants these are usually heavily marked, in deeper violet, at the base on the outside. Some forms also have purple exterior feathering and lines on the outer petals, other forms lack this patterning. Just rarely (as illustrated) the inner petals have a tiny purple mark on their tips and in this form the inner petals are notched at their tips.
In the inside of the flower, the centre is deep, golden yellow whilst the anthers may be yellow before dehiscence or more rarely black, (but yielding yellow pollen still).
Readily grown in pots under alpine house glass in a well-drained, loam-based compost. We have not tried this outside yet.
Known only from the type locality in the Lycian Taurus of S. Turkey at up to 1,500m under coniferous scrub and trees. Where it was found by Janis Ruksans in 2007 and named by Kerndorff and Pasche, (Stapfia 103:pp75 (2015))
Introduced to our lists January 2019
