Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
8th Balkan Botanical Congress, Athens, Yunanistan, 4 - 08 Temmuz 2022, ss.33
Crocus balansae J. Gay is a stunning yellow crocus that exhibits wide variation in terms of perianth segment pattern. This species has a very limited distribution in Turkey, where it is found only around the provinces of Izmir and Manisa. It is among the most threatened crocus taxa because of anthropogenic pressure on its few populations, especially at the type locality. Furthermore, two of the three populations that we visited were found to be not C. balansae, but other closely related species. This preliminary field work shows that the distribution of this species may be much more limited than is currently known.
We observed the population at its type locality, Spil Mountain (Manisa), between 05-10 April 2022 on sunny or partly cloudy days. Two observation sessions were planned; one being in the morning (09:00 to 12:00) and other in the afternoon (13:00 to 16:00). The pollinators were collected in falcon tubes, pinned and dried for further identification. Results indicate that neither the genus nor number of visitors differ according to time of day. Three dominant pollinator genera visited C. balansae: Andrena, Osmia and Anthophora. The bees observed to spend the most time inside the flowers belonged to the genus Andrena. To our knowledge this is the first systemic study on pollinators in the genus Crocus and will serve as a stepping stone for further such work to be carried out in the future.