Italian Galanthus variety?

[Mauro]

Hi everyone!

I found this Galanthus with green stained tepals. I have always found it in the usual 3 or 4 stations for years. In Northern Italy, on the hills near Vicenza. Is it some particular variety?

[annew]

It looks like a pretty virescent form of G. nivalis.

[Alan_b]

It's not recognised as a variety in nature but there are several cultivars that are similar.   You could probably write a journal paper about its preponderance in a particular region, if you have a mind to do that sort of thing.  Although this might cause the less scrupulous amongst snowdrop collectors to visit and remove the ones they found (as seems to have happened with Galanthus bursanus).  Do you find intermediate forms between these and the normal form of Galanthus nivalis? . 

[Mauro]

Hi Alan,
sometimes the color of the spots seems more or less accentuated but it could be my impression. It is actually very rare, in this period the woods near Vicenza (Berici hills) are literally covered with Galanthus nivalis but I find this one with green tepals only in 3 or 4 stations, always the same for several years.

Here are more photos:

[Alan_b]

I (and others, I think) have observed that there are "hot spots" where snowdrops of a particular unusual type occur more frequently.  I know of an inversely poculiform hot spot, an aberrant flower hot spot, a green hot spot and yellow hot spots.  However the snowdrops in my green hot spot have never been as green as the ones in your pictures. 

By way of comparison there are cultivars 'Green Tear' http://www.judyssnowdrops.co.uk/Plant_Profiles/nivalis/green_tear/green_tear.htm
and 'Green Mile' http://www.greenmilenursery.be/plantlist/ (scroll down and click to see pictures).