A NEW SPECIES - BELLEVALIA CHRISII

Despite centuries of plant hunting and botanical science many new are plants are still being described and I’m sure many of us would love to discover a beautiful new flower or to have one named for ourselves.  Well I’m delighted to say I now have the honour of both.  In 2010 I visited the little explored Anti-Taurus Mountains near Malatya.   The tour I was leading with Basak had been delayed by the infamous Icelandic volcano so we arrived in May rather than April.  Searching for flowers on a pass I came across a small bellevalia with distinctive broad leaves which was quite unlike any I’d seen before.  Searching further afield we came across more and better specimens.  A couple were collected and despatched to the botanical garden in Istanbul, but nothing happened with these.  In 2012 I returned to the same location, this time with the experienced and respected Turkish botanist Mehmet Koyucu and I showed him the bellevalia, which were in fine flower at the time and he quickly came to the same conclusion as me that they represented something new.  Again a few more were collected and this time they were looked at thoroughly.  Initially it was thought to be a form of Bellevalia glauca (known from northern Iraq – a long way away) but closer examination by a team of four Turkish botanists – Hasan Yildirim, Yusuf Altioğlu, Bilal Şahin and Serdar Aslan - suggested it was not this species and it has now been formerly described as the new and rare Bellevalia chrisii.  It is closely related to Bellevalia crassa and rixii and is known only from the type locality.  Worrying for me is the small population of only a couple of hundred plants – I could easily go extinct!  In fact I have genuine concern – upon the discovery of Sternbergia candida in the 1970s within no time many were offered for sale and hundreds stripped from accessible locations.  Anyone offered this species in the next few years can be sure they were stolen from the wild, so please don’t buy them I’d like to last a while longer!

Naturally the species features in the Flowers of the Silk Road which is now due for publication in May.  Below are three images of ‘my treasure’ at its’ best.

Chris Gardner, 22nd April 2014

FLOWERS OF THE SILK ROAD II

It’s been too long between posts we know, but with good reason – we decided to undertake a complete revision of the book that involved ditching the botanical structure we had before and instead opting for a geographical journey.  At the beginning we were unsure about which route to take and sometimes you just have to try both before coming to a conclusion.  We are both much happier with this version it’s more interesting and includes more plants than before and there are some new spreads below, some with completed text.  We honestly hope to be sending off the synopsis and tracking down the elusive publisher we need very soon!

Since the last post Chris revisited the north-east of Turkey where the high meadows were superb and he got some valuable shots there of Delphinium formosum, Pelargonium endlicherianum and the enigmatic ghost orchid amongst others.  Here in Antalya we had an almighty rainstorm recently and the autumn bulbs are popping up everywhere with cyclamen, colchicum and crocus on the move.  Basak will be leading a tour in the area at the end of the month and the flowering this year should be perfect.

Chris's trips earlier in the year to NW Turkey and Tajikistan/Uzbekistan have both borne fruit with tours going to these two locations next year for the wonderful spring flowers, see http://www.greentours.co.uk/

QINGHAI

Sorry for a lack of posts of late, I’ve just returned from five weeks in China and blogs such as this are blocked there!  The first half of my trip was a tour I led to Yunnan which was superb for flowers this year with many new species added.  The latter half took me up into northern Sichuan and then the amazing mountains of southern Qinghai – Stone Mountain and Anyemaqen Shan.  In between the thousands of sweet-scented Lilium regale and the stunning blue pools of Huanglong with copious deep pink Cypripedium tibeticum were vast grasslands with huge herds of yaks but these didn’t touch the wonderful spidery flowered Cremanthodium brunneopilosum or the abundant meconopsis.  It was a great trip for meconopsis with often yellow, red and blue/purple present together on various passes and on the high alpine turf of Stone Mountain the Meconopsis lancifolium were simply enormous with wide open ‘bowls’ of mauve-blue bristling with creamy anthers.  This mountain and the rest of its jagged toothed range seemed to erupt abruptly out of the surrounding green carpet.  In between here and Anyemaqen Shan were fine shows of Iris sichuanensis and tumbling masses of Clematis tangutica.

Despite the long, rough journey to reach it nothing matched Anyemaqen Shan with its long glacier snaking down from over 6000 metres and thriving among the moraines from this were so many gorgeous little alpines with the little known Desideria baoigoinensis along with the floral jewel of Saussurea wellbyi its woolly stars seemingly set with precious purple stones.  Its taller even woollier cousin Saussurea medusa was also common here the sinister columns sprouting from the coarse scree together with the sapphire blue of Corydalis melanochlora.  All around was the strangest high alpine turf speckled with androsaces and slopes with thousands of Incarvillea compacta.

Perhaps the finest spectacle though was the last when we’d crossed the rugged ‘badlands’ to visit Qinghai Lake and came across a three hectare (five acre) meadow quite literally carpeted with Primula nutans.  There were millions of them creating a sea of pink beside the lake.  Needless to say I managed to get some invaluable 'silk road' shots, here are a few;

Anyemaqen Shan

Badlands

Clematis tangutica

Cremanthodium brunneopilosum

Desideria baiogoinensis

Blue pools at Huanglong

Lilium regale

Meconopsis lancifolium

Meconopsis punicea (red) & henrici

Primula nutans 'sea'

Saussurea wellbyi

Stone Mountain

FORGOTTEN FLOWERS OF NORTH-WEST TURKEY

For some years I’ve led tours around Turkey - the world’s premier temperate bulb paradise - visiting the south-west, central, north-east and east, but one area had always missed out the north-west.  Admittedly it lacks some of the scenic splendour of other areas, but forest clothed mountains of Uludag, Bolu and Boz Dag as well as the silvery placid waters of Lake Abant are all worthy of a look.  This corner of Turkey is also home to some its finest massed bulb displays especially around Bolu where there exist spectacular carpets of flowers in spring.  Uludag had some wonderful drifts of golden Crocus gargaricus (mixed with chrysanthus) and the varied lilac shades of lovely Crocus biflorus pulchricolor, the latter of which is on the surface at least identical to Crocus abantensis (there are obvious bulb tunic differences below ground…but…) that was abundant above Lake Abant.  The areas around Bolu were smothered in flowers with countless Cyclamen coum, thousands of Corydalis integra, primroses, streamsides studded with broad-leaved Galanthus plicatus byzantinus, swampy areas with the striking bottle-brushes of Petasites hybridus and big stands of lentern rose Helleborus orientalis.  I had previously visited the Bolu area in May and at this time there are sensational carpets of Muscari aucheri and orchids a plenty such as Orchis pallens on show, so at least two visits are needed.

I also tracked down four other specials; the pretty bicolored Iris attica growing on areas of limestone scrub, the pretty pink sibthorpii form of Primula vulgaris tucked among the dense beech forests of Uludag and the endemic and delicate Fritillaria fleischeriana on the sticky red soils that give so much colour to the central hills.  Not far from these was Muscari adilii, named after my father-in-law Professor Adil Guner.  I wanted to make the pilgrimage to see the flower in the wild marly hills near Beypazari and the flower itself was really rather fine, especially set among its’ austere surroundings.  All in all this 'forgotten' region of the country is a very rewarding and distinctive place to spend some time and not only for the flowers, Bursa is the original home of the delicious Iskender Kebap, there are some gorgeous old Ottoman houses on show in some of the towns and villages and some excellent birding to be had with Black Vultures, Bullfinches and Pygmy Cormorants all on show.

Crocus biflorus pulchricolor

Cyclamen coum

Crocus gargaricus

Muscari adilii

Fritillaria fleischeriana

Iris attica

Beech forest

Wooden house at Yazica

HITTITES TO TROGLODYTES

Chris is just back from a great Greentours trip in Turkey that took an original route from Hatay (Antakya) to Cappadocia, calling in at Osmaniye and Karamannmaras on the way and visiting everything from cave churches and Hittite castles to Selcuk castles and a massive Caravanseri.  Of course the flora was the mainstay and there was a superb array of plants some of which will sneak into the book replacing existing pics and even forcing their way in because they were such stunners.  Top of these was Iris sprengeri, whose exquisite reddish-purple veined flowers were scattered across an area of bare steppe, closely followed by the magnificent stands of Fritillaria persica whose near black flowers actually glowed wine-red with the backlit sun and a deserved third place should go to the lovely displays of Cyclamen pseudoibericum in the woods near Osmaniye.  Other highlights from the trip (all close-but-no-cigar) were the hundreds of gorgeous Iris sari, purple-red Corydalis rutifolia, roadside stands of huge Glaucium grandiflorum, white and rose tubed Onosma albo-roseum, delicately veined Crocus biflorus tauri, the soft yellow Iris caucasica tucked among Cappadocia’s fine landscape and the hundreds of thousands of Colchicum szovitsii on Erciyes Dag.  For me the two most interesting non-floral encounters were the superb and massive Caravanseri at Sultanhan (45kms north-east of Kayseri) and the Hittite stonework at Aslantas (Karatepe, near Osmaniye).

Below are five goodies;

Cyclamen pseudoibericum

Fritillaria persica

Iris sprengeri

Iris sprengeri

Iris sari

SPECTACULAR SPRING IN THE 'STANS'

What a superb trip this turned out to be!  Despite the financial worries of laying out for the trip it delivered with a stunning array of early season flowers.  I began in Dushanbe capital of Tajikistan arriving at the hideously early hour of 3am followed by very slow immigration, but once through I got a couple of hours sleep and then I was on the road with my team from Pamir Travel Company (who looked after me very well while I was there) driving into the snowy Zerashan Mountains where over the course of five days I managed to ace all of the flowers I'd hoped for, beginning with Iris vicaria and Bellevallia atroviolacea, then the gorgeous Iris rosenbachiana, big Fritillaria eduardii and the unbelievably refined Corydalis popovii.  Then there was the valley of five million (I kid you not) Iris bucharica that stretched for ten kilometres across both slopes of a valley.  The landscape was stunning too with plunging knife-edged ridges and row upon row of peaks and everything culminated in a simply dazzling display of Crocus korolkovii with maybe fifty thousand golden flowers spread across the bare ground, too dense to tread among and a fabulous mountain backdrop. 

Numerous passport checks but ultimately no problems saw me cross the border into Uzbekistan and meeting up with the people from Advantour (excellent service again) and drove onto Shakrisabz seeing Tulipa micheliana on the way.  The next day I explored the Amankutan Pass and what a place this was, beginning with the big Iris magnifica and followed by the iris I most wanted to see Iris warleyensis – wow, what a flower.  There were masses of snowmelt species too with some great corydalis, Primula fedtschenkoi and Colchicum kesselringianum.  Naturally I spent some time looking around the beautiful blue tiled mosques in Samarkand but then it was back to the flora and a journey north to Chimgan near Tashkent.  I had a reliable (and patient) mountain guide there called Vasily and during our two days walking in the hills we found big populations of Fritillaria severzovii, Fritillaria stenanthera, Tulipa kaufmanniana, the varied hot colours of Tulipa tschimganica, oceans of Tulipa turkestanica and the golden Colchicum luteum  in abundance.  Everywhere were masses of Corydalis ledebouriana and Gymnospermium albertii, whilst in the limestone scree we found Corydalis darvasica and by snow melt the black-speckled ivory-white Crocus alatavicus.  The last flower of the trip was a colony of Iris orchidoides on a steep scree slope and by then I was out of memory but I had more than enough material.

Choosing what pics to post was tricky but here are ten of my favourites most of which should make the book;

Iris bucharica

Apricot blossom and poplars 

Corydalis popovii

Crocus korolkovii

Fritillaria eduardii

Blue Mosque, Shakrisabz

Primula fedtschenkoi

Crocus alatavicus

Iris warleyensis 

Tulipa tschimganica

IRISES OF CENTRAL ASIA

Just as I thought my hopes of reaching Central Asia were just a dream everything has come together at the last minute and I’ll be flying to Dushanbe in Tajikistan in early April.  The plan is to visit the mountains around and east of the capital on the edge of the Pamir and then some areas to the north in the Fan Mountains.  I’ve only got five days but hopefully my team from Pamir Travel Co will get into the best spots.  Janis Ruksans has also given me some pointers on where to visit to find the main target species – Iris rosenbachiana, Iris bucharica and Fritillaria eduardii.  The latter is a real rival to Fritillaria imperialis that colours the steppe in parts of Iran in April (see pic).  On day six I plan to cross over into Uzbekistan and meet up with a different team from Advantour, driving up from the south-east to Samarkand via the Amankutan Valley and then onto Tashkent and the Ugam-Chatkal Nature Reserve.  Amankutan is home to the amazing Iris warleyensis and towering Iris magnifica and these are my main targets here, but no doubt there will be plenty of tulips and other great spring stuff too. 

My previous spring visit to Central Asia was to the Tien Shan of Kazakhstan, mainly around the superb Aksu-Dzabagly reserve.  I found a couple of good irises there the best being Iris willmottiana (caerulea) and the foxtail llilies and tulips were magnificent.  Summer is special there too with amazing flower meadows that haven’t been grazed for nearly a century and chock-a-block full of wonderful herbs and butterflies.  The Karatau Mountains are close to but separate from the Tien Shan and here I saw one of the finest allium species in the world – Allium karataviense.  I hope to be able to spend more time in Central Asia in the future it has loads to offer the plant crazy photographer.

I’ll post the new iris images as soon as I have them, for now though here is Fritillaria imperialis at Dasht-e-laleh in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, Iris caerulea at Aksu-Dzabagly, Kazakhstan and Allium karataviense in the Karatau Mountains also in Kazakhstan;

Fritillaria imperialis

Iris willmottiana

Allium karataviense

FLOWERS OF SW TURKEY

Spring is well and truly underway here in SW TK with lots of Romulea tempskyana, Iris unguicularis and ivory-white Astragalus lusitanicus in flower (our small colony of sweet-scented Narcissus tazetta were a treat back in January), whilst today I noticed a large Muscari muscarimi about to open on a huge boulder only ten minutes walk from the house.  As the season moves on it will just get better and better, loads of crocuses, colchicums and of course snowdrops up on the yaylas and among the magnificent cedars on Tahtali Dag our local peak.  By April we’d expect the first stunning orange-red and yellow flowers of Lathyrus belinensis to be out and when they peak a couple of weeks or so later the roadside banks are smothered along with dozens of other herbs, orchids and Fritillaria acmopetala.  Last year we found an amazing population of purple Limadorum abortivum with at least a hundred spikes sprouting up either side of a track and there was an amazing display of Iris purpureobracta, Fritillaria elwesii and Paeonia mascula at another location near Finike.  Hopefully we’ll get a chance to revisit some of these places, especially as we need pics for our other book ‘Flowers of SW Turkey’.  Certainly we’re taking on plenty of work, but this region is crying out for a pictorial flora with so many superb plants on show so we’re going to try and create both works at the same time.  The flora will contain around six hundred of the most showy and widespread species in the region to give a good insight into the richness of the area especially the many bulbous species for which the SW excels.  The area covered in the book extends from Fethiye to Alanya and the inland mountain areas.  Getting the pics for these is a bit of challenge fitting it in around our tour programme, but somehow we’ll manage and besides we already have around half.

We’ve now finished the draft spreads of ‘Flowers of the Silk Road and Shangri-La’ at least to date, there are still some pics to add later on, but essentially the first 327 pages are complete, just the text to add so here are three more spreads to look at;

SEARCHING FOR THE FINAL FLOWERS!

[Before we start – you must have noticed the text in the trial spreads is in latin? This is just to gauge the appearance of the spread, Chris’s is still writing the real version and we’ll update when they’re ready.]

We’ve got most of the pics we need, but there are always a few loose ends and annoying these are strung out across Asia.  There are some superb species we’ve got to try and include and luckily a lot of them are here in Turkey.  In March we’re going to track down the stunning Iris galatica and Iris danfordiae, maybe even Iris sprengeri if we can find an early one.  Iris galatica is a stunner, easily the match of any of the taller Central Asian species and there are plenty of locations in central Anatolia around Nigde.  After the irises there’s Fritillaria alburyana on Kop Dag and Fritillaria latifolia would be good, although the best population we know of is on the Cam Gecidi near Ardahan.  Closer to home we’ll be tracking down Campanula macrostyla and the bizarre Biarum ditschianum both in the Fethiye direction.  In May we’re going to find Iris gatesii near Siirt before our Van trip.  Basak also has a tour to the north-east in summer so she should find a few Euxine goodies there such as Pedicularis atropurpurea.  At least that’s the plan so here’s the Turkish hit-list which we’ll be crossing off as we find them and posting the pics.  Essentials are in bold;

Aquilegia olympica

Arnebia pulchra

Asyneuma compacta

Bellevalia forniculata

Biarum ditschianum

Campanula choruhensis

Campanula macrostyla

Corydalis caucasica

Corydalis henrikkii

Corydalis integra

Cyclamen coum

Dianthus crinitus

Digitalis davisiana

Fritillaria alburyana

Fritillaria latifolia

Fritillaria sibthorpiana

Fritillaria sororum

Galanthus plicatus

Iris danfordiae

Iris galatica

Iris gatesii

Iris sprengeri

Lilium ciliatum

Lilium monodelphum

Muscari anatolica

Muscari discolor

Nectaroscordum siculum

Onosma orientale

Pedicularis atropurpurea

Pedicularis condensata

Primula longipes

Rhododendron luteum

Rhododendron ponticum

Sternbergia candida

And what about the rest of Asia?  Well Central Asia needs a bit of work and there are a few tulips down there with our name on.  We’ve done well in China of late but ideally still need a couple of decent Saussurea and Rheum nobile for which we have a locations so they should be in the bag in June/July when we go on our respective Yunnan and Sichuan tours. The only other target we have in China is Crawfurdia campanulacea an amazing climbing gentian, but we always seem to be too early for it in mid-September when we take the autumn Yunnan tour.  Also Chris will be checking out another part of China or Sikkim after Yunnan but not sure where yet, should know soon, maybe Xinghai and northern Gansu or southern Tibet all pretty far out places or even Sikkim in summer.  In the meantime here are shots of Eryngium giganteum and Astrantia maxima both fantastic architectural species taken in the Kaçkar late last July;