Galanthus: January 2008

[Martin Baxendale]

[quote Is there an official registrar of Galanthus?[/quote]

I think it's the Dutch bulb growers' association, whose name escapes me (KVA.. something).

But you don't need to register a snowdrop to give it a name.

[snowdropman]

Martin is right, the International Cultivar Registration Authority for Galanthus is the Royal General Bulbgrowers' Association in Holland (KAVB) - Dr van Scheepen is the Registrar.

[KentGardener]

This is where my "every day is a school day" quote comes to life, I had never heard of the KAVB.

Thanks Chris (and Anthony) for expanding my knowledge once again.   

cheers

John

[Maggi Young]

It was Thomas Huber and Luit van Delft who taught me the KAVB lesson, re crocus, John.....good that we are able to glean so much from the Forum, isn't it?

[Alan_b]

Martin is right, the International Cultivar Registration Authority for Galanthus is the Royal General Bulbgrowers' Association in Holland (KAVB) - Dr van Scheepen is the Registrar.

I wonder how many "named" snowdrops are actually officially registered? 

And how would you actually register a snowdrop (or any other bulb for that matter).  Do you have to ship a specimen to Holland?

[mark smyth]

700+ named I was told last year

[Lesley Cox]

700+ named I was told last year

Which is clearly ludicrous.

[Diane Whitehead]

Let me be sure of what you meant:  there are 700 total (not added last year)
officially registered snowdrops. Plus unofficial ones.

 Many of these may never have been seen since being named?

 Or are they only brought to official attention when the intention
is to sell them?

[mark smyth]

simply 700+ named

Lesley what about the 10s of 1000s of Narcissus?

[mark smyth]

there are 744 listed in the book including names no longer used, lost plants and species

[Alan_b]

there are 744 listed in the book including names no longer used, lost plants and species

So that's 744 reported in the latest edition of "Snowdrops" by Bishop, Davies and Grimshaw, plus some more that have cropped up since this was published, plus some others (particularly outside the UK and Ireland) that are not known to these authors and maybe some others that they chose to exclude.  However, my question was how many of these have been registered with the Dutch K.A.V.B.?  The K.A.V.B. have a web site at http://www.kavb.nl/index.cfm that might provide an answer to this question but it's only in Dutch so I did not get very far.

[mark smyth]

I sent an email to them

[loes]

I looked at their site and there is a list of registered bulbs,galanthus also I presume,wich is for members only.so I can`t look at them.perhaps Gerard can,he is professionally in bulbs.I think he can tell more about this.

[Martin Baxendale]

There's not much anyone can do about the large number of snowdrops named. Some snowdrop species are very varied in small details, like ferns for example, and therefore appeal to collectors (I got a book at Xmas with 960 ferns in it!). Too many so-so snowdrops (especially slight variations within a species, rather than hybrid cultivars - often quite nice things but not different enough to deserve naming) have been named. But there they are, and you can't ban then. Also, you can't ban people from naming things.

As Mark says, there are thousands of registered daffs and probably hundreds of tulips, and by no means all of them are popular plants and widely grown. The best snowdrops will inevitably become the most popular and many less striking ones and less strong-growing ones will go out of favour or die out due to disease. More will be named, and it's all an on-going process.

Unfortunately the publication of the snowdrop book stimulated interest in naming snowdrops that people previously had in their gardens as just snowdrops. That's meant some not very good snowdrops finding their way into the trade and into the swopping circuit which will disappoint (or which people find they have already under a different name) and that's annoying. But it happens with other plants (Primula allionii cultivars, the already mentioned daffs and tulips, auriculas, even crocus!) and isn't the end of the world.

Vive la difference! (but bin the really bad ones).

[Maggi Young]

Returning to the subject of plant awards from RHS committees... there is often criticism there of too many plants being named ... but then, when a committee decides to make an award to a plant, invariably that award is made " subject to the application of a cultivar name"..... and so the circle widens!