Can you help ID this snowdrop

[stuart Beveridge]

Hello everyone my name is Stuart, After painstakingly searching through the internet trying to find out what kind of elwesii I bought last year I came across your forum, and was hoping someone may be able to help identify it, to start with I thought it was a comet but after looking at different pictures I am still unsure, I am fairly new to collecting and would love to learn more and hopefully by staying active on here it will help me learn. Sorry the pictures are not very good I need to invest in a decent camera.


 

[Maggi Young]

Hi Stuart, welcome to the Forum.
Did the elwesii come with a name, that you have lost?

[stuart Beveridge]

Hi Maggi, Thanks for the welcome, I got them from a old friend of mines, he gave me about 12 bulbs of which 8 have came through so far this year, he cant remember where he got the let alone what they were called.

[Maggi Young]

....... he cant remember where he got them let alone what they were called.

I know how that feels!

[bulborum]

Are there G. elwesii var. monostictus with a name ??

Roland

[johnw]

Are there G. elwesii var. monostictus with a name ??Roland

Roland - There are named ones but none seem to quite match the inverted U seen in this one.  As Roland suggests G. elwesii var. monostictus, that would make fine label Stuart!

johnw

[Alan_b]

Most of the plants you buy in garden centres are named cultivars.  Buy a daffodil, for example, and it will have a name like 'tete-a-tete'.  But snowdrops are an exception to this rule; almost all of them are just sold as examples of the species, Galanthus elwesii in your case, Stuart.  Named snowdrop cultivars are a tiny tiny minority of all the snowdrops grown in peoples gardens; I suspect there are millions if not billions of unnamed snowdrops for every example of a named cultivar.

Then, to make matters worse, the named cultivars do not come true from seed and snowdrops, even different snowdrop species, cross pollinate very readily.  So if you bought a named cultivar ten years ago and planted it with the other snowdrops in your garden and left it to its own devices then the chances are that what you have now is a clump comprising a mixture of the original named cultivar and other plants that have grown from seed that may or may not resemble it.  In fact I have convinced myself that, under these circumstances,  I must be complete mad to have an interest in growing named snowdrop cultivars! 

[stuart Beveridge]

Thanks for the replies, having phoned my friend today and picking at his brain a bit i managed to find out abit more information on it, he found it in a woodland more than 15 years ago in scotland and has had it potted alone in his garden ever since, he assures me this was not bought dont know if this helps any more.

Stuart

[Maggi Young]

Hi Stuart, this means your snowdrop will not have a name other than its type. Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus, as others have suggested. 

[KentGardener]

(without a picture of the leaves it could be from various species - sorry)

 

[stuart Beveridge]

(without a picture of the leaves it could be from various species - sorry)

 

Here is a picture of the leaves.

[bulborum]

Looks for me G. elwesii var. monostictus

Roland

[Alan_b]

G. elwesii

The species

var. monostictus

A description of the type, meaning it has a single mark on the inner petals.

[Tim Harberd]

Hi Folks,
    I'd appreciate your collective opinion on this.
    ''Sam Arnott'' arrived in my garden over a decade ago... and I'm very happy with it.
    One clump has established in a corner of the greenhouse. (See pic)
    I keep reading about Sam Arnott's fragrance and I can detect no smell.
    Surely a greenhouse would be the ideal place to appreciate any scent?
    Do you think my Sam Arnott is an imposter??

Tim DH