Description
This was formerly offered by us as Crocus vitellinus White. Though the new clonal name of Paloma applies to all plants originating from ourselves, it cannot be legitimately applied to other forms of white vitellinus in commerce, or cultivation, some of which are suspected to be hybrid.
When talking of the white colouring, in fact it would be more accurate to say “white suffused with violet” but the violet is only present as speckles on the exterior of the outer three petals which have a white base colour. This is a gorgeous plant, with white-petals, yellow orange in the throat and spickled with tiny dots of violet all over the outside of the outer petals.
This is a particularly nice plant and an unusual colour for Crocus. It is very hard to believe that this and vitellinus are the same plant, but in flower shape, structure and corm tunic they are exactly the same which is perhaps to be expected as this is a clone selected from a single seedling of the original Mouterde stock, in turn grown by the company of van Tubergen and later the Hoog family, in Holland and France. Generally seedlings of the Mouterde stock are variable in shades of yellow.
This form is a chance mutation, where the yellow pigments have been lost. Though there have been suggestions of white vitellinus being hybrid, this is speculation and is unproven in fact Paloma is not thought to be hybrid (we can’t say the same for other, unproven white “vitellinus“). It was selected as a single seedling only from the yellow C. vitellinus stock that we offer. It is fully fertile, setting good seed and, importantly, these seedlings breed true, from closed-pollinated seed, with little or no variability. Its fertility and true-breeding nature, with so little variation argue against it being hybrid.
A gorgeous plant, one of my favourites with a lovely colour combination every bit as nice as the elusive C. alatavicus but with a delightful, growable, free-flowering, easy going nature.
