Galanthus January 2011

[mark smyth]

  too long without snowdrops. I didnt notice it was wrong

[johnw]

Hello JohnW.
There is a little mistake in your collection. Have a look to GREEN PEACE!?!
Thank you for the other drops. They give a lot of confidence.

Good eye Hagen but Brian noticed it first in a pm!  Any idea what it might be?

Also the Fieldgate Prelude appears to be mis-labelled. I was making notes in the greenhouse yesterday when suddenly I noticed for the first time there was a problem.  Whilst the markings are close  - it's a grex - the leaves are entirely wrong.  Here are the leaves. I will contact the source and see if they can offer a name.  In the meantime any ideas on that one?

johnw

[mark smyth]

Nothing wrong with your Fieldgate Prelude unless mine is wrong also
http://www.snowdropinfo.com/galanthus%20fieldgate%20prelude.html

or could yours be John Gray?
http://www.snowdropinfo.com/john-gray.html

[Melvyn Jope]

The time will soon be here for looking around garden centres to see if ther are any interesting Galanthus elwesii. I bought this one in January 2009 and it is increasing well.

[Martin Baxendale]

John, Fieldgate Prelude has narrow leaves like its parent, Mrs Macnamara. It also tends to split up into a lot of small bulbs when grown in a pot, which is what yours looks like it's doing - and when it does that the leaves of the many small offset bulbs are even more narrow and un-elwesii-like.

Just went to check mine, which are doing the same thing in pots, and the smaller offsets have leaves just like yours - not convolute but applanate-looking and very narrow.

[Gerard Oud]

Checked the snowdrops this sunny morning and it is starting well.
New seedlings and the chips are producing a flower too!

A good start for 2011!

[Brian Ellis]

New seedlings and the chips are producing a flower too!

Big Boy x Dutch Windmill Gerard?

[johnw]

John, Fieldgate Prelude has narrow leaves like its parent, Mrs Macnamara. It also tends to split up into a lot of small bulbs when grown in a pot, which is what yours looks like it's doing - and when it does that the leaves of the many small offset bulbs are even more narrow and un-elwesii-like.

Just went to check mine, which are doing the same thing in pots, and the smaller offsets have leaves just like yours - not convolute but applanate-looking and very narrow.

Martin - Just re-read the Monograph which states the leaves are as Mrs. MacNamara 8.5 x 13.5cm!!  . and an elwesii. It also says Fieldgate Prelude is an elwesii, at least in the index whilst in the text it merely says the grex is ex Mrs. MacNamara.  Somewhat baffled.

johnw

[johnw]

too long without snowdrops. I didnt notice it was wrong

Mark

I guess we're all just coming out of hibernation.  I seem to be missing the obvious lately.

johnw

[Brian Ellis]

John, Fieldgate Prelude has narrow leaves like its parent, Mrs Macnamara. It also tends to split up into a lot of small bulbs when grown in a pot, which is what yours looks like it's doing - and when it does that the leaves of the many small offset bulbs are even more narrow and un-elwesii-like.

Just went to check mine, which are doing the same thing in pots, and the smaller offsets have leaves just like yours - not convolute but applanate-looking and very narrow.

Thanks for that Martin, a most useful titbit of information, are there others that behave the same way?  I must admit that my Fieldgate Prelude is in the ground so I had not noticed this tendency.

[Paddy Tobin]

The time will soon be here for looking around garden centres to see if ther are any interesting Galanthus elwesii. I bought this one in January 2009 and it is increasing well.

Melvyn,
That certainly looks a good snowdrops and the fact that it increases well is a very worthwhile feature also.

Good find. Paddy

[Martin Baxendale]

Mrs Mcnamara is definitely an elwesii though a slightly unusual one with its narrow leaves and inner mark that doesn't look very elwesii-like. That leaf width measurement must be a mistake. In the description Matt describes the leaves as narrow. It's also a known tetraploid with double the genetic material of a normal diploid plant, so seedlings will tend to look very much like the parent (since it contributes double the normal amount of genetic material to the cross) unless it crosses with another polyploid adding as much genetic material.

Mature bulbs of Fieldgate Prelude have similar narrow elwesii leaves to Mrs Mcnamara. The cross that produced them was most likely with another elwesii in Colin Mason's garden but it could have been with a plicatus or some other species which contributed less genetic material so that the seedlings showed no characteristics other than from the elwesii Mrs Mcnamara parent. But I'd guess it was Mrs Mcnamara x diploid elwesii.

Brian, I think most elwesii if they're very small bulbs will produce thin leaves that are only weakly convolute.

[Martin Baxendale]

Fieldgate Prelude was a selected grex from the Mrs Mcnamara seedlings in Colin's garden. The other seedlings selected out looked like Mrs Mcnamara. I've always wondered what happened to those seedlings. Did they ever in some way get into circulation as Mrs Mcnamara? In which case the Mrs Mcnamara being grown now may be a mix of the original clone and a grex from that cross. I keep meaning to ask Colin about that. I expect he'll say that's not likely, but I'd still be interested to know what happened to those look-alikes.

[johnw]

Martin - Are there many other tetraploid Galanthus cultivars or species?  It might be an interesting line in your work to try inducing polyploidism into some of the best ones.  I wouldn't have an idea how to go about it with monocots but it is not terribly difficult in dicots these days. My guess is you would have to expose a sprouting seed to the chemical so the developing bulb was affected whereas in dicots oftentimes only the top of the plant is exposed to it leaving the roots diploid. Then always a good chance diploid cells will overtake the creation.

johnw   - +4, a bit of drizzle

[Martin Baxendale]

John, there are no other known existing tetraploids. That's one of the major breeding problems. Only one know tetraploid and most known triploids are hybrid triploids and therefore have very, very low fertility.