Description
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. Twintone sits somewhere in between and it is a form where the inner three petals are a very pale, virtually white, colour, whilst the outer three are a much darker violet in colour. Both ‘Harlequin’ and ‘New Harlequin’ have similar colouring but our ‘Twintone’ strain is raised from a different stock, which came to us under the number WP141. Two corms selected for good, tw0-toned colouring, in flower, in Mani, reached us some years ago. The Twintone strain is their progeny.
Crocus goulimyi is a native of Malea and Mani, Greece. It is best known from Mani where it was first discovered by Dr C. N. Goulimyis in the early 1950s. 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 onwards. 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.
Twintone as introduced to our lists, and to cultivation, September 2017.
