At eye level with crocuses

Long time no see, long time no hear, dear blog friends!

Today I want to report back to you with some harbingers of spring which have been really flourishing for more than one month already here in the south of Germany.

[Crocus on ice]

 

These crocusses I took last Saturday in the Botanical Garden of the Wuerzburg University where you can find more than just one species of crocuses and other early flowering plants.

Next to these purple beauties I found a spot with some goldish yellow crocuses as well.

But honestly I must say the purple species are my favourites.

Good bye February - welcome March!

The world in purple, yellow and white

Are you prepared for a spring color therapy???

--> Here we go!!!

This beauty in purple is

Crocus tommasinianus (woodland crocus, Tommasini's crocus, early crocus),
often referred to as 'tommies', were named after the botanist Muzio G. Spirito de Tommasini (1794-1879), who was Mayor of the city of Triest.

They are native to Bulgaria, Hungary and former Yugoslavia. 

And to the garden of the botanical institute of Wuerzburg university.

 Crocus tommasinianus is often referred to as early or snow crocuses, but these terms are shared with several other species, although C. tommasinianus is amongst the first to bloom.

I took the photos on Sunday, 23rd February in the garden of the botanical institute of Wuerzburg university. All the crocuses were already fully in bloom.

I can't remember any earlier time of flowering of these harbingers of spring in Germany.

Last year it was the first weekend of March when I took the very first of these crocuses there.

Ok, let's change the color to a bright yellow...

 

What do you think?

These yellow, even golden crocuses look like "catchers of the sunshine", don't they?

Especially in front of the dark background of their bed.

Now let's change the shade of your yellow color...

... to a more pale version.

This blossom carpet is knotted by Eranthis / winter aconite.

Species in this genus are spring ephemerals, growing on forest floors and using the sunshine available below the canopy of deciduous trees before the leaves come out.

Most of you certainly haven't seen of these spring beauties before, haven't you?

Narcissus romieuxii is an early flowering species of daffodil.

It blooms in mid to late winter. There are many subspecies and cultivars, with flowers in many shades of white and yellow. This narcissus species originated in the Atlas Mountains region of Morocco.

Here I used a texture to rework my photograph of Narcissus romieuxii- but textures only seem to be a girl's [femal photographers] best friend.

I'm absolutely not sure if this photo really needs a texture.

What do you think?

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Let's reduce the color to the minimum - white is beautifully and delights the eye... ;-)

Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum).

The snowflakes are native to central and southern Europe, from the Pyrenées to Romania and western Russia, but they have been introduced and have naturalized in many other areas, including the east coast of North America.

It flowers one or two weeks later than the snowdrops, i.e., from mid-February to March, as soon as the snow melts in its wild habitat.

Last but not least: 

A beautiful group of Helleborus niger, commonly called Christmas rose or black hellebore,

What's up with the springtime flowers in your part of the world?

springtime is purple

Our German winter isn't finally through, but it definitely made a break last week with a lot of sunshine and temperatures up to 18°C... ;-)

But our nature seems to be fed up with wintertide, especially the crocuses can't abstain from coming to light.

In the spa gardens of our hometown we've a sea of purple gems currently...

...composed of tens of thousands of shining floral stars.

For next week the weathermen promised us to get cold temperatures and snow showers again, but more or less the winter is on its last lap.

So let's enjoy our sea of crocuses...

...as long as their blossoms cheer our eyes with their marvelous colours.

 - Click here to view all participnts of A Waltz Party -

Greedy for spring!

Now that sunshine, a mostly blue sky and moderate temperatures finally have arrived in our part of planet Earth after the long and monotonous winter, I was looking eagerly for the first harbingers of spring in my familiar surroundings.

What I did not expect was to find a "fellow traveller": a brimstone butterfly.

It was as greedy for the first crocus blossoms as me.

But fortunately there were more than enough crocuses for us two on the spa gardens meadow of our choice.

While I tried to pick out only the most beautiful crocus blossoms with my camera lens, the brimstone butterfly seemed to be less choosy.

...cleared for takeoff!

Beauties in pink

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Dedicated to the victims and people suffering from the Japanese quake-tsunami disaster 11 Mar 2011

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Crocuses found in the botanic garden of the biological institute of Würzburg university.

Some of them grow in a garden part that is emulated like a mountainous area.

common pasque flower [Pulsatilla vulgaris]

Welcome spring. Goodbye winter.

 

 I was barely three days off from home. After my return yesterday I was really thunderstruck by the fact that the long German winter has vanished into thin (and warm) air.

Today we had great, sunny weather with moderate temperatures of about 13°C. 

In the weekend edition of our local newspaper I saw a photograph of our spa gardens with a bunch of flourishing crocuses.

One hour later I went to the spa gardens and was surprised by the flower carpet of purple crocuses.

I cannot remember having seen such a large sea of flowers there in the past.

Of course I took a couple of photos before I had to leave. 

Between all the violett blossoms I was able to find even some white species.

Kleiner Frühlingsgruß in lilööö...

...springtime greetings in purple / lilac!

Nature definitely can't wait any longer - this winter was pretty too long.

Now one can find crocuses everywhere in our latitudes.

Those I found during our weekend trip last week on the waterfront of Lac de Morat (Lake Murten / Murtensee) in the canton of Fribourg (& Vaud) in the west of Switzerland.

A little excursion to wikipedia:

Crocus (plural: crocus, crocuses) is a genus of perennial flowering plants, native to a large area from coastal and subalpine areas of central and southern Europe (including the islands of the Aegean), North Africa and the Middle East, across Central Asia to western China.

The genus Crocus is placed botanically in the iris family (Iridaceae). The plants grow from corms and are mainly hardy perennials, and are found in a wide range of habitats, including woodland, scrub and meadows.

There are about eighty species of crocus (of which approximately 30 are cultivated). Their cup-shaped, solitary, salverform flowers taper off into a narrow tube. Their color varies enormously, although lilac, mauve, yellow and white are predominant. The grass-like, ensiform leaf^[1] shows generally a white central stripe along the leaf axis. The leaf margin is entire. Crocuses typically have three stamens. The spice saffron is obtained from the stigmas of Crocus sativus, an autumn/fall-blooming species.

The name of the genus is derived from the Greek krokos (κρόκος), which—like the Hebrew karkōm, Aramaic kurkama, Persian and Arabic kurkum—means saffron or saffron yellow.