ISSN 2053-7557

It is with pleasure that the IRG can this month bring to its readers the latest paper from Jānis Rukšāns the well-known bulb expert. Dr Rukšāns is the author, in English, of the book Crocuses: A complete Guide to the Genus and Buried Treasures: finding and Growing the World’s Choicest Bulbs, as well as several titles in Latvian, his native tongue. Jānis has long been generous in his contributions to the SRGC forum with his tales of travel and plant exploration as well as sharing news from his nursery, now run with his step-daughter Līga Popova – complete with his exasperation at predation of his bulb collection by rodents making free with his stocks under cover of winter snow. At present Jānis grows more than 1500 samples of crocuses in his collection; among them are several new, undescribed species, on which further observations are needed. Cover picture: Crocus brickellii photo by Jānis Rukšāns---Plant Descriptions---Here Dr Rukšāns specifies the features of Crocus chrysanthus s.str. from type locality, describes four new species and changes the status of one other. All this information will be added to the Crocus Pages on the SRGC website. Crocus danfordiae Maw and C. chrysanthus (Herbert) Herbert (Iridaceae) an