Orange Crocus?

I nipped along to the local GC for some bird feed earlier this morning.  I was standing in the queue for the check out, it was surrounded by Christmas Time!  For me it's a bit too early to be thinking of Christmas, I much prefer to focus on Christmas when we reach November.  It seems I wasn't the only one, the couple behind me and the two ladies behind them were commenting on just how early these displays appear.  I know not if it's because the weather is still great and it's way to sunny to contemplate the cold dark days of winter or if these displays are appearing earlier.  I seem to remember that stores used to wait until Halloween was over before tempting us.  Is this just my imagination or are those marketing managers getting earlier?

Amongst the Christmas Cheer, the racks of spring bulbs, stood tall, teasing us all with their wares.  I decided to take my eye off Christmas and distract myself by perusing the bulbs.  I wasn't on the look out for any more bulbs.  In fact, I had just spent a few hours earlier in the week under planting the new roses with a couple of hundred of Crocus bulbs, I had no plans for more bulbs at this precise moment.  My back is still a bit stiff from all that crouching and crawling.

Amongst the selection of Crocus on offer I came across a variety I had never seen before.  Orange Monarch Crocus.  On any of my days out at Early Bulb shows, I had never seen Crocus looking quite so orange.  Deep golden yellow, verging on the orange yes, but orange? No! And it comes complete with it's own purple flame.  It sounds ever so warm and cosy doesn't it?

  
You know where this is heading don't you?  The novelty alone made these totally irresistible.  Marketing Managers 1 - Angie's Garden 0!  The bee friendly stamp gave my purchase all the justification it needed.  Have I ever seen a bee in my garden at Crocus time?  Certainly not in a regular winter, that's for sure.  Maybe like me, they'll be taken in by the novelty value!  You never know til you've tried, right? 

As you can see from the label, they are described as 'The Only Orange Crocus' complete with capital letters on every word.  What's that all about?  Further investigation on the web, I have found many sites offering these bulbs up for sale.  It seems the name varies depending on which one you visit.  I found it listed a both C. chrysanthus and C. vernus Orange Monarch.  An image search produces colours ranging from orange to yellow.  I wondered if the image been fiddled with - time will tell, won't it?  The fact that this is a relatively new cultivar means there was little information readily available.

Or so I thought.  I came across a thread on the forum of the SRGC, here, where this bulb is the topic of discussion.  A couple of submitters seem to think this is in fact Crocus olivieri balansae Zwanenburg that has been given a fancy new trade name, complete with it's own ® just to make it more appealing and has been about for quite some time, 1983 to be precise.  Just to confuse maters even more, an image search produces what look like, to me, identical looking flowers.  In fact, the same picture seems to do the rounds for both.  I say that as a complete novice and these are just my observations.  

Crocus Orange Monarch is far easier to say than Crocus olivieri balansae subsp. Zwanenburg, providing you even know how to pronounce most of the later, that is.  It's a bit of a mouthful, so I can see why breeders might want to change the name for us common folks!  They are not the first and certainly won't be the last to do such a thing.   
 
All I need do now is select a nice sunny spot and hope to share them all with you come springtime.  Will there be Orange Monarchs in Scotland?  We shall see.