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/

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

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;

COMING SOON!

A celebration of the finest mountain flowers that lay along the fabled Silk Road beginning in Istanbul, Turkey and passing through Iran to Central Asia from where we continue the journey south to the fabled Shangri-La to include the plants of western China and the eastern Himalaya, drawing together the extraordinary flora found in the most spectacular mountains on Earth.  It is the culmination of twelve years travelling around Asia visiting diverse countries and their landscapes, cultures and of course flowers from bulb fields in Turkey to blue poppies in Sichuan or black irises in Jordan to ravishing slipper orchids in Yunnan, tulips in the Tien Shan to dionysia in the Iranian Zagros. 

It is a personal compilation intended as an introduction to the world’s greatest treasure trove of flowers and the book structure follows a botanical route through the flowering plant kingdom rather than a geographical one, showcasing it family by family selecting the loveliest, most outstanding or colourful genera and species.  The objective is to inspire and not to catalogue and the book will contain the key floral elements of this huge region, providing an overview of what is where and when.

The Silk Road itself is a loose concept and was certainly never a single road instead branches diverted into different corners of the Asian continent and the book too wanders here and there to nearby botanical spots, whilst still heading in the same general direction from Turkey to China and the Himalayas the mythical realm of Shangri-La.  The pictures used are jointly the fortuitous product of professional tour leading for Greentours Natural History Holidays www.greentours.co.uk to the areas featured as well as many private trips to this remarkable botanical world.  

To offer a taster of what is to come by (hopefully) the end of 2011 here are six spreads from the book;