Bizarre galanthus flowers

[Shauney]

Hi I'm new here, I'm a landscape gardener and ask a customer who has a small woodland crammed with snowdrops if I could did up so snowdrops for my own garden. What a surprise I got when some of them flowered! I think It's so unusual that I had to find out if anyone here has ever seen anything like it! I look forward to hearing your comments. Thanks Shaun.



(edit by maggi to turn the photo)

[Tim Harberd]

Hi Shaun,
   Welcome on board!!

   It is difficult to conclude very much from one photograph of one flower. The thing to do is to keep an eye on it, and see if it pulls the same trick next year. Plants that consistently produce bizarre flowers are of interest to some people. I suggest you ‘leaf’ through the collection of photographs that Brian assembled on the ‘Galanthus that are truly easy to recognize!’ thread which appears in the ‘Sticky Topics’ section.

   Have fun.

Tim DH

[Shauney]

Some more photos. I have 2 flowers that have done the same,1 is better than the other and looks very much like a slipper orchid. So I'm really hoping that as there are 2 bulbs doing it then it will be the same next year. The last pic shows another with 2 of the inner segment that are wavy.

(edit by maggi to rotate the photos)

[Maggi Young]

There have been some problems for folks posting pictures from their i-pads or smart phones -  these are appearing either sideways or upside down  when loaded to the forum.

It 's a question of how the pix were first  saved I think.  Not sure, since I don't  use an i-pad or camera phone, so I consulted Ian about this.

He says  if the pix are flipped in the device  or as you resize them ( to make them display the right way up as you see them) then they will rotate when posted here, back to the original orientation.  If you don't flip them they'll be  correct here in the first place. ( with a bit of luck!)

[Shauney]

Thankyou Maggie for correcting them. I just sent them as they were in my phone which were the correct way up when sent. Just another one of life's mysteries!

[emma T]

Looks like a Nivalis 2x2

[johnralphcarpenter]

Looks like a Nivalis 2x2

Does that come in a four-wheel drive version?

[Shauney]

Thanks for your reply Emma, I've been gardening for 27 years and grew up on a farm but have never seen a 2x2 and can't find any for sale, is it something collectors aren't looking for in a snowdrop?

[Alan_b]

Despite the multiplicity of shots I still find it difficult to see what is going on.  I think there are three tiers of petals instead of the normal two.  The outermost tier comprises normal outer petals but it seems there are only two.  The next tier has very distorted petals that have some green towards the tip.  And the innermost tier has normal inner petals, but only one or two.

A 'standard' 2x2 would just have two outer petals and two inners.  It tends to occur in immature flowers; I'm not sure if any stable 2x2s are known.

These are curious-looking things but you will have to grow them on for a few years to find out if they are stable.  There is something similar I can think of but better because the petals are not distorted.  This one became known as 'Berthille' http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=10185.msg269989#msg269989

[Shauney]

Hi Alan, I will try and take some more closer pics tomorrow. It has only got 2 tiers and should have been an ordinary 3x3, but one of the outer petals has fused with two of the inners which has made it spoon shaped. One of the flowers is perfect and the other has still fused but a little more open.

[Alan_b]

Thanks, Shauney, I think I can see that now.  I cannot bring to mind any snowdrops with fused petals.  I hate to be a doubting Thomas but could they have been exposed to anything sticky so the petals are stuck together rather than fused?

[Shauney]

Nothing sticky Alan, they are definitely fused.

[Shauney]

Sorry to bother you again Alan, but what do you think of the pic I posted earlier with frilly inners? Have you seen anything like that before? It has 3 outers but 4 inners only 2 of them are longer and frilly.

[Alan_b]

If you look take a typical nivalis flore pleno and turn it upside down you will see that the inner petals are not neatly arranged nor, except rarely, all the same size; it's "messy".  You are very likely to find some longer frilly petals in there but if there are fused petals in the mix then it's something I have never noticed.  So one could think of your snowdrops as very weakly double (with only one extra inner petal) but still with something of the mess.  Most galanthophiles favour symmetry in their flowers; some also like the extreme asymmetry of the spiky doubles.  The trouble with your form, Shauney, is that is neither of those and does not look terribly attractive to my galanthophile eyes.  Interesting, undoubtedly; pretty, no.  But sometimes a massed display can look good where individual flowers do not.  Or you might find if you look carefully through your snowdrops, and those in the woodland from which they came, then you can select-out some attractive symmetric forms and see if that symmetry is retained from one year to the next.

We might even be able to lend you the services of a galanthophile to help-out in the screening process but your profile does not reveal your whereabouts in the country.  I would certainly come and take a look if it turned-out you were not too far from Cambridge.         

[Shauney]

Thankyou Alan for your time and input. There are singles and doubles in the wood and I will definitely be looking more closely at snowdrops from now on. I live in Basingstoke Hampshire so a little too far away from you. Thanks Shaun.