Turkish memories: Jill White went with a group to south-western Turkey in the spring and relates what she found

摘要

It was supposed to be a simple package holiday for eight AGS members (booked six months in advance) to Kemer near Antalya in Turkey, a good base for plant exploration. After a last minute cancellation, and changes in both the hotel bookings and flight timings, we arrived in the early hours of the morning only to find that there was a fairground opposite the hotel with numerous bright lights and a great deal of noise. We were based here for several nights at the beginning and end of the trip, so after the second night of fairground noise we demanded quieter rooms. After a good breakfast it was off into the Bey Dag to explore one of the lovely gorges where Cyclamen graecum carpets the rocks in every shade of pink in the autumn, and large land crabsgo about their business. If one looks carefully C. trochopteranthum is also there but not in such great numbers. Wandering along the gorge one has to constantly side step the tourist jeeps which thunder past producing clouds of dust. However, there are compensations: onosmas, ferns and that wonderful heath Erica (=Pentapera) sicula var. libanotica with its large (lot a heath!) white bells. Hidden high up in the precipices above two fine colchicums can be spotted, CC. baytopiorum and troodii.