Crocus tommasinianus Herb.

Early Crocus, Tommasini's crocus, Woodland crocus, crócus

Climate known 49 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Crocus tommasinianus, the woodland crocus, early crocus, or Tommasini's crocus, is a species of flowering plant in the family Iridaceae. It is named after the botanist Muzio G. Spirito de Tommasini (1794–1879). It is native to Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, and the former Yugoslavia. It is often referred to as the early or snow crocus, but these terms are shared with several other species, although C. tommasinianus is amongst the first to bloom. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Crocus tommasinianus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Crocus

Crocus is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae comprising about 100 species of perennials growing from corms.

Text from Wikipedia, “Crocus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Iridaceae

Described by

Herb.

Native to

Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria +1

Wild records

17 in range· 5 open

At a glance

Warmest month

25°C

Jul, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

991mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Nov 102 mm (CHELSA)

Light

9–38DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Crocus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to April, June and August to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 991 mm a year, wettest November at 102 mm, driest July at 71 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 38 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -12.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Crocus serbicus A.Kern.; Crocus serbicus A.Kern. ex Maw; Crocus tommasinianus f. jeremicii Randjel.; Crocus vernus var. tommasinianus (Herb.) Nyman.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Crocus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to April, June and August to December in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (700 mm of 991 mm) takes 8 months, March to April, June and August to December. Mean temperature moves 20.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: February to June, September to October and December.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 991 mm a year, wettest November at 102 mm, driest July at 71 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

991 mm a year at the habitat, 700 mm of it March to April, June and August to December. Wettest month November at 102 mm, driest July at 71 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 618 mm to 3241 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 38 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 38 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 6, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -12.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -12.4 °C, the absolute minimum -24.6 °C, about 102 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.1 °C in January (across the envelope cells -3.8 °C to 3.0 °C), warmest day 25.4 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -12.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 56 to 65% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 17 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	4 / 3–8	6 / 4–8	10 / 8–11	15 / 11–16	19 / 16–21	23 / 20–24	25 / 22–26	25 / 23–26	20 / 19–22	15 / 14–18	9 / 8–13	4 / 3–9
Night °C	-3 / -4–3	-3 / -3–3	1 / 0–5	5 / 4–9	11 / 9–13	14 / 12–17	16 / 15–20	16 / 15–20	12 / 11–17	8 / 7–13	2 / 2–8	-2 / -2–5
Rain mm	72 / 32–324	73 / 33–302	78 / 43–304	82 / 41–272	75 / 66–173	79 / 66–125	71 / 33–78	77 / 55–124	90 / 63–244	97 / 39–365	102 / 45–456	95 / 43–466
DLI	11 / 8–13	16 / 13–18	23 / 20–26	31 / 30–33	37 / 34–39	38 / 36–44	38 / 35–45	34 / 31–40	26 / 22–30	18 / 14–21	11 / 8–14	9 / 6–11
RH %	63 / 57–65	61 / 57–62	59 / 57–60	56 / 56–60	57 / 56–59	57 / 57–59	56 / 54–56	56 / 54–57	59 / 57–59	61 / 58–62	63 / 58–65	65 / 58–66

Each figure is the median across the 17 grid cells holding the 17 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 867:3934 (46.625, 16.725). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -24.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -12.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 17 distinct grid cells holding the 17 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 867:3934 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 46.50_16.875, lapse-corrected +35 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 212 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeHungary, Albania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia· introduced: Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, New York, Delaware, Virginia

Kew's description“tuberous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker43.874, 18.323 · in the densest population, 9 records (53% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 17 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 5 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 683 km away. 1419 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 17 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) M. Whitson, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) jonsense, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Sandy Wolkenberg, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Quentin His, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Crocus tommasinianus, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Molecular genetic evidence for allotetraploid hybrid speciation in the genus Crocus L. (Iridaceae)

Ágnes Mosolygó-L, Gábor Sramkó, Sándor Barabás, Levente Czeglédi (2016) · Phytotaxa

Comparative Anatomical Study Of The Taxa From Series Verni Mathew (Crocus L.) In Serbia

Irena Raca, Irena Ljubisavljević, Marina Jušković, Novica Ranđelović (2017) · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

Incorporating Early Spring Bulbs into Dormant Warm-season Turfgrasses

Michael D. Richardson, John H. McCalla, Tina Buxton, Filippo Lulli (2015) · HortTechnology

Persistence and performance of spring‐flowering bulbs in warm‐ and cool‐season turfgrasses in a subtropical climate

Svoboda V. Pennisi, Freddie C. Waltz, William B. Miller (2021) · International Turfgrass Society research journal

The genus Crocus L. in the flora of Svilaja Mountain

Nediljko Ževrnja, Dalibor Vladović (2005) · University of Zagreb University Computing Centre (SRCE)

Naturalization of the Ornamental Plant Crocus tommasinianus Herb. (Iridaceae) in Forest Ecosystems: A Case Study from Poland

Renata Nowińska, Aneta Czarna (2024) · Forests

Evaluating indigenous Albanian bulbous plants on green roofs for urban ecosystem enhancement in Mediterranean climates

Silvi Jano, Kejt Dhrami, Fiona Imami, Gjok Vuksani (2024) · Journal of Regenerative Economics

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