Autumnal Equinox Bloomers

Colchicum 'Oktoberfest'

This one hit it right on the nose, the big Oktoberfest celebration in the Willamette Valley takes place in Mt. Angel, home to the  Mt. Angel Abbey and now celebrating it's 45th year of oompah bands and bratwurst. The huge goblets of pink are really quite a site on this hybrid and they seem to know exactly when the lager will be flowing because they started blooming two days before the celebration. I know it's of German origins but does anyone know it's parentage?

Colchicum alpinum
Just trying to capture the color a little better, this one taken while adjusting the aperature down a notch or two and the exposure compensation up. I think the haze that has been hanging in the valley from the numerous mountain wildfire's has really changed the color on these late summer photo's, it's like a built in filter.

Colchicum bivonae 'Apollo"
Delightfully tessalated, or checkered. I must apologize for the coloring on these photos, I've been moving the aperature down a few steps and I try to make it out the bulb house every evening to shoot whats new, but the flat late summer light and probably my pretty cheap camera seems to turn the pinks to purples.

Colchicum 'Glory of Heemstede'.......Hmmmm is this name correct or is it just a really lame name for a flower?  I mean, Ya, Ya, it's a town in the Netherlands and we all know how important that place is to commercial bulb growers. But did you know that it was the home to George Clifford who hired linneaus to catalog his plant collection a long time ago?.....we all know what linneause did for post and modern horticulture.

Colchicum confusum
I think this one is from Greece, please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have a big library of bulb literature, and what I do have is hopelessly out of date, But I do love sitting down and observing these plants for a good bit of time in the alpine house. I don't measure stamen length or count petals I just like to look and see what the overall complexity of the specimen has to offer.

Colchicum byzantinum 'album'
Again just messing around with the exposure compensation, by this point the fires have died out a bit and the haze has lifeted from the valley. The colors are once again clearer and brighter.