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Flowers of Crete encourages interest in Crete's wild flowers and promotes their conservation
Happy New Year to everyone.
Looking forward to a flower-filled year. |
Flower of the month - January 2015
Androcymbium rechingeri
This unusual, wintering-flowering bulb, related to Colchicums, is endemic to Crete. It was once thought to be restricted to the island of Elafonísi, off SW Crete, and though it was later found on the west coast of Crete, too, that still means a remarkably restricted range.
Androcymbium rechingeri is found in pockets of sand or clay in open, coastal phrygana. It's in flower between December and February. This photo is by
Fotis Samaritakis.
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More flowers month by month here. |
News
Wild Orchid Conservation workshop, led by Phil Seaton and FoC's Julia Jones, 1st - 6th June 2015 in Hungary. More in news here >
Orders are now being taken for the Flowers of Crete 2015 calendar featuring endemic flowers of the island in original images by Julia Jones.
Calendars cost £12 (14 euros) including post and packing. Payment can be made by PayPal to julia@jjbotanicart.com or by UK Bank transfer.
Please ask for further details. |
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Cretan fritillary is an endemic subspecies found only on the island, according to research at the University of Patras. See news here >
Conserving the Cretan Lizard Orchid. Himantoglossum
samariense (right) is one of Crete's most elusive and threatened plants. Julia Jones from Flowers of Crete describes recent efforts to find and protect it - read the full story here.
Flowers of Crete holidays and courses 2015 are now open for bookings. Details of orchid-finding trips in spring and summer orchid-finding trips plus autumn bulb finding all on our holidays page. Food Foraging and Discovery Trips, and a botanic art workshop with Julia Jones in October 2015, are on our specialist holidays page. |
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With some 1700 species of flowers native to Crete, of which 10 per cent are endemic, you may wonder where to start. One way is to click on the photos below. You can find out what these flowers are, and see our Flowers of Crete introductory web pages ...
Saving the Cretan Palm
The Cretan palm Phoenix theophrastii is found only on the coast of Crete and south-western Turkey, and on Crete is best known from Vai and Préveli.
The red palm weevil, sadly sometimes imported on cultivated palm species, is a serious threat to the near-endemic Cretan palm and every effort needs to be taken to try to stop its progress.
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You can help by keeping an eye out of the weevil and its grubs and reporting news to Flowers of Crete.
More here. |
