Galanthus in March 2014

[Martin Baxendale]

No, not 'Magnet', Leena. The mark is not right and the pedicel is not long enough or dangly enough. Here's a link to a good photo of 'Magnet' on the Judy's Snowdrops website, for comparison...

http://www.judyssnowdrops.co.uk/Plant_Profiles/Hybrids_Single/magnet/magnet.htm

[Leena]

Thank you Martin! I'm so glad I asked.
Any guesses what it could be? I know there must be a lot of snowdrops like this, but since it was bought I would think it was a cultivar.

[Martin Baxendale]

Thank you Martin! I'm so glad I asked.
Any guesses what it could be? I know there must be a lot of snowdrops like this, but since it was bought I would think it was a cultivar.

Yes, there are  a lot that look like that (a nivalis x plicatus cross) and it really could be any of them.

[ChrisD]

No, not 'Magnet', Leena. The mark is not right and the pedicel is not long enough or dangly enough.

It doesnt look like Magnet to me either, but mine start with short normal pedicels which elongate as the flowers age.

Chris

[Melvyn Jope]

Nearly at the end of the season here, Rushmere Green always one of the last to flower

[snowdropcollector]

Melvyn, great picture of a lovely snowdrop. Good to see the flower, as I did receive a bulb from it last week. Hope it will do well
for me 

[Oakwood]

Is this Crimean G. plicatus plant virused, I guess?

[emma T]

Looks like fasiation, can be a number of causes .

[johnstephen29]

Hi Ashley yes I will definitely order from him next year, thanks again for your help.

[Gerhard Raschun]

No, there are two inners and two outers at both flowers. I checked.

Dear Chris,

there is a named cultivare, similar to your found: It is G. nivalis `Duet` , named by Bavcon, the custos of the BG in Slowenia. There occur a lot of mutations in this area, mosty are not pretty .

Congratulations on your very pretty and enviable finds !

[Leena]

Thanks Martin and Chris, I'll just call it falsemagnet.
I'll have to now buy another and the  right 'Magnet'.

[Alan_b]

I'll just call it falsemagnet.

I think 'Notmagnet' might be better  .  'Falsemagnet' should be reserved for a snowdrop that actually looks like 'Magnet' but isn't.  I have a horrible suspicion that if you bought an example of 'Magnet' from every snowdrop dealer you might actually end up with a range of different snowdrops - but hopefully most of them would resemble each other.

[Tim Ingram]

I suppose the question is - how much does the name really matter? Lots of 'Magnet' look-a-likes have been grown and eventually given names according to the various places they have come from but for many gardeners they would all just be rather nice snowdrops with longish pedicels! Only the collector begins to measure pedicels and green marks (you might realise I'm playing devil's advocate here because I also measure and compare them!). Alan's description of registering a snowdrop tends to lead to more distinction in names but I can't see many galanthophiles going through this process - we certainly have one or two 'Copton' Magnets as well as 'Copton' Trym's, but a few others that really are more distinct (which is amazing when you consider there are well over 1000 cultivars of galanthus - the discrimination of the gardener is remarkable).

[Alan_b]

I see the main purpose of the name is to allow people to keep track of a snowdrop (or any other cultivar), its history and provenance.  I've distributed 'Cressida' to a very few galanthophiles but found out recently it was being passed on.  Hopefully there are now so many named snowdrop cultivars that collectors will stop aspiring to be completists and start thinking about the merits of the various cultivars, allowing the inferior ones to fade away.  If that ultimately happens to 'Cressida' then so be it; some people like it but others certainly do not.  After a long period of time the possibility of mistakes, seedlings and even fraud can mean that the identity of a cultivar can become confused and various different snowdrops may end up being distributed under the same name.  Until we have cheap genetic fingerprinting of plants I see no remedy for this.

With regard to registration, the point for me is to get the name into print and thereby comply with the ICNCP rules.  One hopes that any good registrar would also throw out plants that are not worthy or not distinct.

 

[Leena]

I think 'Notmagnet' might be better  .  'Falsemagnet' should be reserved for a snowdrop that actually looks like 'Magnet' but isn't.  I have a horrible suspicion that if you bought an example of 'Magnet' from every snowdrop dealer you might actually end up with a range of different snowdrops - but hopefully most of them would resemble each other.

'Falsemagnet' it is.
The reason why I would like to have the real 'Magnet' is that if it is later, then it is also better to my conditions (at least in most of the winters when there is more snow and it melts later, this Falsemagnet is fine this year)

I suppose the question is - how much does the name really matter?

I would like to have lots of snowdrops bringing  spring to my garden, good growers suitable to my conditions and my garden, but how do you know what to buy if you don't know the names, what they are supposed to be like  and if the bulbs you buy are not true to that name. I do have G.nivalis, which likes it here, but the collector in me would like more and different kinds of snowdrops, bigger, late flowering (so that they can cope with the snow), with big flowers (or with green flowers or something else which makes them interesting) . I don't want hundreds of different ones (the famous last words), just the ones which would do best for me, but I don't know which they are before I have them to try here. On the other hand I enjoy just lots of flowers (whatever their names are) and spring garden after winter, but on the other hand I like to know what my plants are. I like to study them and know more about them, I'm silly that way.