Snowdrop ident please?

[Edgar Wills]

this is without flash or filters -- my smart phone is bad -- in fact it was run over by a car last week -- but still going

Looks really cool, any chance you could get to grow it yourself? I'm no expert, but as a far as I know lady elphinstone indeed has green ovaries.

[Alan_b]

Im only aware of Galanthus nivalis flore pleno Lady Elphinstone -- but doesnt that have a green ovary ?

There are one or two other double yellow nivalis snowdrops but it isn't completely certain that these are not 'Lady Elphinstone' rediscovered.  I think you are right that 'Lady Elphinstone' has a green ovary (receptacle) so what you have found may be completely new, not a known cultivar.  However snowdrops that have emerged in the dark, trapped under leaves perhaps, may appear temporarily yellow but will green-up in a week or two when exposed to light. 

[deee]

Thanks for that info Alan.

I think this drop would have been above soil for several weeks but will go back and look next week.

As a side note -- whats the general way of getting hold of a snowdrop thats growing in a church yard ? Im not aware of who owns them or who to approach -- warden etc

[Alan_b]

I have done this a few times by seeking permission from the churchwarden.  I have always explained that I only want to remove a few bulbs and have never yet been refused.

Modified to correct typo

[ptallbo]

Here they are in their full glory,  which specie this could be, it is these that I have had here many years and bought as specie so no hybrid and no other snowdrops in the surroundings either unitl last season when I planted several species in the same bed.


Edit by maggi - sorry , it seems the links to these images are no longer  valid.

[Alan_b]

What you have appears to be a self-seeding colony.  The leaves seem less twisted than I thought, although it is there to a degree.  I still think the yellowing on some drops could be the result of being starved of light some time earlier.  You may need to wait until next year to be sure, one way or the other.     

[ptallbo]

Thank you! Yes I have planted some bulbs once and from that the whole colony have emerged .. They have been covered with snow this spring until I removed it, so it is possible that they are lack of light but they have got sunlight for several weeks now and still are yellow and some were yellow last year as well with no cover of snow. These are not as affected as many of my other are, they were fully grown when I removed the snow so they were yellow due to lack of light so now I know that I need to remove the snow from this bed due to early growers.

[Stefan B.]

Hi, please could someone help me with trying to identify this?

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[David Nicholson]

I wonder if the experts amongst us might be able to help me ID this one please. My label says elwesii but I just have the memory (these days memories are somewhat tenuous!) that when I got it the label possibly said caucasicus. I've been reading Freda Cox's book and I'm utterly confused now between elwesii, elwesii var. monostictus, and caucasicus (syn alpinus). Hope the pictures are good enough.

[deee]

Hi David -- looks a lot like a Galanthus Woronowii to me but i get just as confused about that group - with its woodland type such as possibly this and its rock type with the completely different leaf form, and then of course Galanthus ikariae which it was distributed as for many years.

So a definately non expert opinion is its Woronowii ?

[deee]

QUOTE :

For a long time, the name elwesii was reserved for plants with both an apical and a basal green mark on the inner petal. Plants with only a single apical mark were thought to be a separate species, Galanthus caucasicus. A better understanding of these plants in the wild shows that they are both variants of a highly variable species and the name elwesii has priority. The single marked plants ("caucasicus of gardens") are correctly known as elwesii var. monostictus. Although the single marked plants are very rare in the wild, they are very common in gardens; a phenomenon that remains to be fully explained.

[Stefan B.]

Hello David, I think it is Galanthus woronowii. Here's my picture from my garden

 Galanthus woronowii

[David Nicholson]

Thank for responding deee and Stefan and thanks very much for your help. I've very much had a Snowdrop query day to day because in addition I took some pictures this afternoon of a plant I received a couple of years ago labelled as Galanthus ikariae and tried to see it in the light of another plant I've always thought of as woronowii. I think you are right and I now have three clumps of woronowii.

The plant I got as ikariae is posted below but the flower is pretty much past it's best.

[annew]

I think your first plant might be ikariae - it shows the little blisters on the leaf surface which correspond to the large air spaces inside the leaves. Not an expert on these two though - I have a whole Word document with bits taken from the forum at different times where experienced growers have tried to help us out.

[deee]

Anne would you be able to post that word document either here or in woronowii variations etc ?

Im finding that bulk buying dormant Woronowii a very cost effective and interesting process with considerable variation and so far the best i can do is just identify possible woodland variation against mountian/rock variety. Any extra information be very helpfull.