What's in a name?

Until a few years ago I'd have called this Crocus pestalozzae ... in my head I still do.   But.  The name nerds, taxonomists, have had a field day over the last years as genetic analyses can be used ot rewrite our understanding of the relationships between different plants - and I'm not only talking crocuses!   And then there are the different schools of thought.  In plant taxonomy there are basically two schools, the 'lumpers' and the 'splitters.'   Lumpers will look at very similar plants and lump them together under one species name, maybe with the odd subspecies.  Splitters burrow down into minute details and find 'new' species galore and often end up renaming old ones as they split them apart.  In the crocus world at present it's a splitters paradise ... but I'm definitely a lumper!  So.  This should be called Crocus violaceus under current practice but I still think of it as Crocus pestalozzae var caeruleus.  The white flowered plant very very similar to this one, still is called Croccus pestalozzae.  They both have the distinctive black connectives in the throat of the flower that looks like a few specks of soil have dropped into the flowers.

It's been an admin day and a very grey rather cold one, so you folks in the east enjoying warm sunshine can count yourselves blessed.   Lots of ticks on my to do list and I did get out to the greenhouse, watering, potting on cyclamen seedlings and repotting pleione.  I'm tired after three days at work, needed a snooze before tea.   Shanty singing tonight.