Galanthus in February 2018

[Leena]

I like Alan's find  , it always special when it is your own find.
Also 'Praha' is so pretty. At first glance Lucy' looked quite "spotted", but it is different!

[Hans J]

here a short video from last weekend :

https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/bw/mannheim/mannheimer-luisenpark-schneegloeckchen-fieber/-/id=1582/did=21250278/nid=1582/1asd61r/index.html

Have fun
Hans

[Maggi Young]

Nice film, Hans - thanks for the link - good to see organiser Anne Repnow included.

[Hans J]

there are also some other well known collectors and sellers

[Josh Nelson]

This is an outward facing plicatus that I found last year and which has repeated this year; taken 26 Feb:

[Josh Nelson]

A fine byzantinus, with good inner markings on a substantial flower held on a good pedicel; taken 26 Feb:

[Tim Harberd]

Hi Josh,
    Is that the same byzantinus you commented on in 2015 & 2016 with 45mm petals?  ( 'SL1'? )
    If so, is it any bigger this year?
    Would it be fair to say it doesn't bulk up quickly, or have you split it?
Tim DH

[Josh Nelson]

    Is that the same byzantinus you commented on in 2015 & 2016 with 45mm petals?  ( 'SL1'? )
   

Hi Tim, no this is another from the same source population and I think from the same year (2015); so this one is not a good clumper although I like it.  Outers might be nudging 40mm on this one (I have several around the 38-40mm mark, as size was one of the first things I selected for).

SL-15-1 is the one I found with 45 mm outers.  One of two bulbs I potted separately may have hit 45mm this year but they have all been out of the ground (the main lot in an aquatic pot to boot so they need to get in the ground to regularly hit 45mm; ditto full height.

SL-15-1 is very distinctive, with long, narrow incurved outers and clumps well, so is a good drop - I'll post pictures.
Josh

[Josh Nelson]

Tim, this is SL-15-1: first three are this year; fourth is when found in March 2015:

[Brian Ellis]

Lovely shape to that snowdrop Josh, a great find, well done.

[Josh Nelson]

Thanks Brian. 

It is from a historic population that I am looking into as i think the population is likely to be noteworthy (appears to be a fragmented relict population from an old rockery long dismantled and may be linked to Crimean War although can't say yet whether snowdrops could be linked directly). 

The variation is impressive (and what has led me to arrange permission and go back annually) and is well shown by this one, SL-15-21, which you had a direct hand in, as one of the first things I did in 2015 when I joined was seek advice on chipping, as I must have unwittingly damaged this one on collecting.  I came to the forum to try and save what I could of a by then rapidly rotting bulb.  You gave me advice, which I followed and this year, three chips flowered (two very small will take another year or likely two); one is double scaped already. 

It is a big, currently balloon shaped, heavily textured flower.  I recall on finding, it was on a very long scape held on an angle of possibly around 40-45 degrees and had big paddle shaped flowers on good claws held nicely (so claws must lengthen quite considerably like many of the population). Will be interesting to see how it develops.

Photos show larger, double scaped flower (outside photos) and smaller, currently single scaped bulb (indoors pictures).

[Rick Goodenough]

Josh, that is quite a lovely find and I am delighted along with you that you were able to get the three chips going again. I am interested in how you are piecing the history together to connect to drops brought back from the Crimean War ending in 1856. Fascinating connections with history.

Rick

[Alan_b]

I think there may be a flaw in the 'Crimean War' theory.  There are two forms of plicatus, var. plicatus which has a single apical mark and var. byzantinus which has two marks.  The Turks call var. byzantinus "The Istanbul Snowdrop" because it grows in that area, bordering the south west coast of the Black Sea.  Var. plicatus is the form found in Crimea, which is at the opposite end of the Black Sea, the north east and a long way distant.  I have never seen either population in the wild so I don't know how true to type either is.  However there is a large naturalised population of plicatus at Wandlebury Ring and they all have a single mark (var. plicatus) although in some instances it covers more than half of the inner petal.

Josh's very beautiful snowdrop manifestly has two marks so I think that means it did not come from Crimea.   

[Blonde Ingrid]

I am interested in how you are piecing the history together to connect to drops brought back from the Crimean War ending in 1856. Fascinating connections with history.
Rick

I am also interested in the military connection to distribution Rick, particularly the mapping of the various regiments that were involved and their home barracks locations.

For example, it is a mistake to concentrate solely on the Crimea itself. British and Allied Regiments were stationed in various areas around the region. Scutari for example had many allied units plus the hospital where Florence Nightingale was based, in the South West of the region of the Black Sea. Cavalry units would have covered much wider areas than their barracks as they practised tactics. There is still a lot of work required to map the spread of these little flowers.

[Josh Nelson]

very interesting Alan - thanks for pointing that out and avoiding too much research in the wrong direction. The population is largely what one would call byzantinus in form but the variation includes a few single apical mark types as well as flowers that look as if gracilis might be in the genes. 

If a population is long standing and has included more than one species at some point, then how the plants develop over time is something I suspect we don't know about sufficiently. Even in the wild, it does not always look to be clear what populations are composed of and DNA analysis should certainly help here (I initially wondered if byzantinus, with its thinner leaves to plicatus plicatus is actually a plicatus gracilis hybrid in historic origin although that was probably wild speculation!).

G.p. byzantinus is clearly a very variable (sub)species or form (again, please excuse lack of botanical knowledge) and what Tom Mitchell has documented illustrates this.  I asked Tom a while ago if looking at the variation in this population might help pinpoint a single source population. That would likely be difficult to do, even presupposing a single source initial collection; however somewhere in the area east of the Bosphorus (or south near Bursa perhaps) would be likely and so I should have been able to use basic geography to rule out a Crimean connection as the main source!

I will try and investigate further in an event and see what more I can find: no full yellows yet but there are some that are definitely on the way to yellow and there is also a bit of a virescent hotspot there (mostly lightly or partly virescent) so it is worthy of looking into possible provenance, or history at least.