Description
A spring flowering species, once regarded as a third subspecies of C. olivieri but now elevated to species rank in the current round of Crocus’s “change the status”. Said to be restricted to a small area around Istanbul where it is found in scrub in an area that is both cold and moist in winter, but it is also known from some other, nearby, sites and this stock is raised from the seed of plants first found in Aydin Province at 650m altitude.
The flower is brilliant orange-yellow, usually without exterior markings, and the style is characteristically divided into 6 branches and is a slightly darker orange shade than the petal colour . This also has wholly parallel coarse fibres in the corm tunic, which become slightly netted at the neck. However this is only seen in older bulbs that have not been regularly cleaned.
Readily grown and it does well here, outside with little attention other than lifting and cleaning every other year, though this is for sales rather than because of any need. Indeed this is harder to get hold of than to grow.
