Description
This makes tight clusters of fragrant flowers early in the season, Feb-Mar. These are usually, milk-white but can be lilac or rarely purplish. All of the forms are attractively marked with dark violet veins towards the base of the segments and the outer segments are usually (though not invariably) overlaid with a pale mustard yellow. The throat of the is yellow inside, adjacent to quite large, creamy-yellow anthers and a small style, set below the level of the anthers..
This is a relative of the even rarer, Crocus carpetanus, which is itself unusual in that the back of the leaf is rounded. (when they have a keel on the underside, most Crocus usually display this as a flat keel), Crocus nevadensis is intermediate however – it does have a keel, but this is rounded!
A gorgeous winter-flowering species found in alpine meadows in small areas of Spain and Morocco. These are covered in snow during winter, when the plant gets a cold, dryish winter rest. It does not always thrive if not allowed this cold, dry rest. In the wild it emerges from the snow into a buoyant, sunny environment with good air circulation and light. Given such conditions it is easy, but treated in an offhand manner, the flowers may succumb to Botrytis and similar rots so that it is often regarded as best in an alpine house. Ours have been grown and raised outside, unprotected! Either way, fertile, loam-based compost, good drainage and not too severe a summer rest suits it.
Raised from material originally traceable to a Spanish population from Cuenca Province, south of Tortola, where it grew in pine forest at fractionally over 1,000 m. This is more slender than our N.African stock, perhaps better used to snow and frosts but a little smaller.
