About Crocus flavus Weston
Crocus flavus Weston is a herbaceous perennial geophyte that grows from a corm. Its globe-shaped corms are relatively large compared to those of other crocus species, and the corm tunics have parallel fibers. The chromosome count for this species is 2N=8, with 11 B-chromosomes. Four accepted subspecies are currently recognized: Crocus flavus subsp. dissectus T.Baytop & B.Mathew, which is native to western Turkey; Crocus flavus subsp. flavus, which is native to Bulgaria, Greece, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Turkey, and is naturalized in Utah; and Crocus flavus subsp. sarichinarensis Rukšans, which is native to Turkey. Crocus flavus subsp. flavus has been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. In cultivation, Crocus flavus naturalizes easily in gardens. It has escaped cultivation and become established as naturalized in the U.S. state of Arkansas. Most garden-grown plants of this species are triploids that do not produce seeds, so they are propagated vegetatively. Crocus flavus has been hybridized with other crocus species to create many different cultivated varieties. One popular cultivar is Crocus flavus 'Grosser Gelber', also called 'Big Yellow', which produces large orange-yellow flowers.
