Description
Crocus goulimyi is a wonderful autumnal species with robust flowers held on long, strong tubes, in October. In colouring this can vary from the most well-known, soft violet, through to white in one direction and a much rarer deep violet form at the other extreme.
Our named clone Omales is raised from a single corm collected, in flower, near the village of the same name, in Mani, in November 2011. It is a pure white form distinct, and instantly distinguishable, from the older ‘Mani White” form which arose in cultivation. Omales is slightly smaller in flower and generally makes substantially smaller corms. The flowers have petals in which the inner and outer whorls are both about the same size, certainly they are not significantly differentiated into large and small, the way that Mani White is. Omales is clonal, raised by vegetative division and never by seed.
Crocus goulimyi is a native of Malea (subsp. leucanthus) and Mani (as the subsp. goulimyi), Greece. It is best known from Mani where it was first discovered by Dr C. N. Goulimyis in the early 1950s. Later discoveries from further explorations found the species in Malea (the adjacent peninsula) but as a smaller flowered, pale plant. In all of its forms, this stands the worst of the autumnal weather here and still looks good, both flowering and increasing well. It does well also in pots or pans under alpine glass, or plunged in frames but brought inside when the first flowers open (not sooner or it will become leggy). It can happily live back in the plunge again after flowering.
Its characteristically rounded corms are easily grown in a sunny, well-drained spot or pot in a loam-based compost, producing its faintly pollen-scented flowers from spotted and streaked bracts, from the later half of September onward. Increase is good from both seed and offsets, though it will appreciate good feeding or a fertile soil if the offsets are to reach a decent size. Please note that this clone has the smallest corms of any of the forms of Crocus goulimyi that we grow, that is simply how it is.
Omales was named by us, introduced to our lists, and to cultivation, March 2018.
