G. elwesii / graecus or ???

[PhilG]

I bought 2 pots of G. elwesii from the garden centre a couple of days ago.

One of them (I'll return to this in a moment) I bought because there was a plant with 2 flower stems and you can't have too many of them. The flowers also have a pleasant scent.


The other pot had one with all green inner petals and a small green mark at the tip of the outer petals.



However, after I'd had them home for a few hours I noticed something odd about the one with 2 flower stems - the leaf vernation was applanate.

[PhilG]

This ‘odd’ plant is the tallest of all of them at 9.5 inch tall.

The leaves are long, currently up to 7.5 inch long, straight sided and narrow at 1cm. Otherwise the leaves look right for elwesii.


I might think G. gracilis, but they aren’t twisted.

As the vernation of G. graecus is variable, could that be what this is?
Could it just be a very unusual G. elwesii?

The label says they are UK locally grown by Sandiacre.

Do they actually have a large field somewhere and grow loads of snowdrops (they also supply nivalis and woronowii) or do they just import bulbs and perhaps grow them for a year before sellig as ‘local’ ? Anyone know of them?

Obviously if they do actually grow loads of species in the UK, then this could possibly be a hybrid from cultivation – but I don’t think it is.

Does anyone think this can be put down to a particular species (accepting that graecus isn’t officially recognised yet). Or is this one of those ambiguous plants, that just doesn’t quite fit any description, because that elwesii/graecus/gracilis group are so closely related and possibly still in the process of separating, and our ‘species’ grouping just doesn’t really fit the ‘real world’.

Any and all thought on this appreciated.
Thanks.