Description
Muscari atillae is a new species, described recently and so far known only from the Levent Canyon in the Malatya Province of Eastern Anatolia, in Turkey. There it is known only from a narrow altitudinal band from 1,100m to 1,250m where it grows on and in marly-calcareous rocks and cliff walls.
So far (and based on only small numbers of plants in the hands of a few growers) this is proving quite easy in cultivation in a very well-drained, loam-based compost, dry in summer. The plant is tiny, a real little gem, and I love it for that. In the later days of January, it is already in flower here (it appears to be hardy but we keep it under alpine glass) and the first flowers are open when the total height of the stem and flower spike together is less than 5cm. It is the height of a finger! a real little charmer which doesn’t get big or boisterous but which delights the few who are lucky enough to have seen this diminutive gem. In time this will be one for the early showbench.
It is most closely related to M. discolor and M. anatolicum but it is easily distinguished by having only 2-3 leaves (we have rarely recorded 4 in cultivated plants) which are quite short and narrow. In addition it has fewer, shorter, ovoid-tubular fertile flowers held in a raceme with conspicuous white to cream lobes (sometimes without or with a very short whitish zone on the upper part of the tube). In larger plants, the upper flowers are said to become sterile and white, however this does not appear to be constant and this feature is neither evident in our photograph, nor have we ever observed it here. It is however shown in the original paper describing the species though.
Named by Hasan Yildirim in honour of the discoverer, his brother, Atilla Yildirim.
First offered September 2018 and raised from the first ever seed set in cultivation, on plants themselves traceable to the type collection.
