WELCOME to the Flowers of Crete website
Flowers of Crete encourages interest in Crete's wild flowers
and promotes their conservation.
Flowers of Crete holidays and courses for 2022
Holidays for 2022 with Flowers of Crete are now available.
In hopes that we are back to normal in 2022, here are the new dates for holidays scheduled for next year. We look forward to welcoming back customers old and new for a very long awaited return to Crete and its flowers. As returning customers will know, my groups are very small and all appropriate precautions will be taken during trips.
More information about our trips on our holidays page.
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January flower of the month
Androcymbium rechingeri
This small but stunning winter flowering bulb, grows in only a few scattered areas in Western Crete. Appearing in the sand at the back of beaches, it is supposedly protected due to its endangered ranking in the Greek Red Book. I have only managed to find this, courtesy of a friend, once, but that once has left a lasting impression on me. It is endemic to Western Crete and deserves our protection.
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News
PlantaEuropa is looking for illustrative case studies from European countries, including Greece/Crete, If you would like more information contact Mykyta Peregrym. Read more
Oliver Rackham 'commemorative symposium': to celebrate the life of landscape historian
and author of The Making of the Cretan Landscape, who died last year, there was a commemorative symposium in the UK (Cambridge) in August 2016. More in news.
Bellevalia juliana: a new flower for Crete, named after Flowers of Crete founder, Julia Jones. More in news. Photoset of Bellevalia juliana by Stephen Lenton on Facebook here.
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. |
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Getting started with Crete's wonderful flowers
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. |
