''Tulipa saxatilis'' ( syn. ''Tulipa bakeri'') is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and Turkish species of plant in the genus ''

Tulipa Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes in the ''Tulipa'' genus. Their flowers are usually large, showy, and brightly coloured, generally red, orange, pink, yellow, or white. They often have a different coloured ...

'' of the family

Liliaceae The lily family, Liliaceae, consists of about 15 genera and 610 species of flowering plants within the order Liliales. They are monocotyledonous, perennial, herbaceous, often bulbous geophytes. Plants in this family have evolved with a fai ...

.Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
/ref>

Description

''Tulipa saxatilis'' is a

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of ...

plant. The stems can reach a height of up to 25 centimeters. This geophyte (cryptophyte) forms

bulbs In botany, a bulb is a short underground stem with fleshy leaves or leaf basesBell, A.D. 1997. ''Plant form: an illustrated guide to flowering plant morphology''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. that function as food storage organs during ...

as resting buds. The egg-shaped bulbs have a rough shell, are 2 to 3.5 cm long and 1.5 to 3 cm wide. The two to three

leaves A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, ...

are up to 38 centimeters long and 4.5 centimeters wide, and are flat, narrow and

lanceolate The following terms are used to describe leaf plant morphology, morphology in the description and taxonomy (biology), taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade ...

with a clear gloss upper surface. The flowers are usually single, rarely in pairs on the stem. The

perianth The perianth (perigonium, perigon or perigone in monocots) is the non-reproductive part of the flower. It is a structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla (petals) or tepal ...

is bright pink, with a sharply demarcated yellow centre and the petals are pointed. The three outer petals are 38 to 53 mm long and 9 to 18 mm wide, the three inner ones being the same length, but wider. The

stamens The stamen (: stamina or stamens) is a part consisting of the male reproductive organs of a flower. Collectively, the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filamen ...

are hairy at the base, with brown to black anthers that are 4.5 to 7 millimeters long. The capsule has coarse cross veins in the upper part.Sprengel, Curt Polycarp Joachim. 1825. Systema Vegetabilium, editio decima sexta 2: 63
/ref> The flowering period extends from March to May. There are

diploid Ploidy () is the number of complete sets of chromosomes in a cell, and hence the number of possible alleles for autosomal and pseudoautosomal genes. Here ''sets of chromosomes'' refers to the number of maternal and paternal chromosome copies, ...

and

triploid Polyploidy is a condition in which the cells of an organism have more than two paired sets of ( homologous) chromosomes. Most species whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes) are diploid, meaning they have two complete sets of chromosomes, one fro ...

plants with 2n = 24 and 36 chromosomes.Karin Persson: Tulipa L. in: Arne Strid, Kit Tan (eds.): Mountain Flora of Greece. Volume Two. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1991, pp S. 667–672

Distribution

''Tulipa saxatilis'' is primarily a plant of the

Southern Aegean The South Aegean (, ) is one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It consists of the Cyclades and Dodecanese island groups in the central and southeastern Aegean Sea. Administration The South Aegean region was established in the ...

islands. It is also found scattered in the

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

areas of

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

(including the islands of

Gavdos Gavdos ( ) is the southernmost Greek island, located to the south of its much larger neighbour, Crete, of which it is administratively a part, in the regional unit of Chania. It forms a community with surrounding islets and was part of the forme ...

and Dia), also on

Karpathos Karpathos (, ), also Carpathos, is the second largest of the Greek Dodecanese islands, in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Together with the neighboring smaller Saria Island it forms the municipality of Karpathos, which is part of the regional unit ...

and occasionally on

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

and the

Datça Datça is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Muğla Province, Turkey. Its area is 436 km2, and its population is 25,029 (2022). The town center is situated midway through the peninsula which carries the same name as the distri ...

peninsula in Western Turkey. It grows at the edges of fields,

scree Scree is a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of a cliff or other steep rocky mass that has accumulated through periodic rockfall. Landforms associated with these materials are often called talus deposits. The term ''scree'' is ap ...

slopes and rock faces up to 900 m. The species is also cultivated as an ornamental, and is reportedly naturalized on the Greek mainland as well as in Italy and on the

Scilly Isles The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the British mainland at Lizard Point, and has the souther ...

in the United Kingdom.

Cultivation

A common cultivar is 'Lilac Wonder' (illustrated), often classified as a cultivar of the subspecies ''T. saxatilis'' subsp. ''bakeri'' A.D.Hall. However, it is commonly considered to be derived from ''T. saxatilis'' ''sensu stricto''. The

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

'Lilac Wonder' (''T. saxailis'' Bakeri Group) has been given the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. It includes the full range of cultivated p ...

. It has pink flowers with yellow at the base inside. File:Tulipa saxatilis1LEST.jpg File:Tulipa saxatilis2LEST.jpg, ''Tulipa saxatilis'' subsp. ''bakeri'' File:Tulipa saxatilis (2).jpg, Closeup of flower of Tulipa saxatilis

References

External links

Virtual Botanical Museum of Crete” – MEDITERRANEAN AGRONOMIC INSTITUTE OF CHANIA (MAICh), 2008. Operational Programme “Information Society”, Measure 2.4

RHS: ''Tulipa saxatilis'' (Bakeri Group) 'Lilac Wonder'
{{Taxonbar, from=Q847291 saxatilis Flora of Greece Flora of Turkey Garden plants Plants described in 1825