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Re: Crete

> For me the highlight was seeing the anemones on the Omalos plateau. I saw
> smaller A hortensis (?) various shades of pink and blue.

In Crete, the large flowered anemone with five rounded 'petals' is
Anemone coronaria (with red, blue, amethyst, or white flowers); the small
flowered one with several oblong-rounded petals is Anemone hortensis
subsp. heldreichii (usually bluish white, occasionally pink). There's
also Ranunculus asiaticus, the turban buttercup, which looks like an
anemone but on closer inspection clearly has five sepals behind the five
petals; Amenone has none, just a ruff of bracts on the stalk an inch or
so below the flower. R. asiaticus comes mostly in white or pale pink in
Crete, though there are bright yellow and very rarely stunning blood red
forms.

> There was still qite a bit of snow about so I think the tuips were a bit
> late as I walked across some of the fields I saw loads of emergent
> leaves especially of ones with a very undulating leaf margins.

The bulbs with undulate leaf margins are most probably a grape hyacinth 
species related to the edible one Bob mentioned. This one has the 
spectacular name of Muscari spreitzenhoferi. Try saying that after a 
bottle of retsina. Or even before. The tulips (T. saxatilis, T. 'bakeri') 
have straight leaves and are common on the Omalos plain, so you probably 
saw them too. The 'spuds' you saw being dug up could have been either 
Muscari comosum or M. spreitzenhoferi.

The Cretans are keen on wild vegetables and not only collect grape
hyacinth bulbs but also dandelions (Taraxacum minimum), a species of
spiny, dwarf-shrubby chicory called 'stamnagathia' in Greek (Cichorium
spinosum), several species of lettuce-like plants in the daisy family,
e.g. sowthistles (Sonchus oleraceus), the young shoots of wild asparagus
(Asparagus aphyllus) and black bryony (Tamus communis, yam family), a dock
(Rumex tuberosus), the just-opened flowers of  various mustard relatives,
an endemic bellflower relative called Cretan rock-lettuce (Petromarula
pinnata), and even the unlikely sounding (i.e. not obviously edible)
black nightshade (Solanum nigrum). I once fished this last one out of a 
rustic salad I was given; not sure if it was intentionally included...

Nick.
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