Names for types of snowdrops

[Alan_b]

I managed a brief conversation with Joe Sharman yesterday which prompts me to observe how lacking the snowdrop world is for good descriptive names for different snowdrop types.

Poculiform is supposed to mean shaped like a small cup, or possibly goblet.  It's debatable if that is really an apt descriptive term for snowdrops where the inner petals take on the character (or some of the character) of the outer petals.  But this is long-established so we may be stuck with this one.

Inverse poculiform.  This is used to mean snowdrops where the outer petals take on some of the character of inner petals.  Trym is an obvious example of this type.  Joe was adamant that "inverse poculiform" is too wordy and does not convey any sense of the type it is trying to describe.  I agree with him wholeheartedly.

atkinsii-type was sometimes used as shorthand to convey snowdrops that behaved like the aberrant form of G. atkinsii with a tendency to produce extra petals and spikey petals from behind the ovary.  Unfortunately this type of atkinsii was renamed to "James Backhouse" (to distinguish it from the regular form) and "James Backhouse type" is way too much of a mouthful.  This type is quite common in wild populations (in my experience) and would benefit from a good descriptive term.

Mrs Thomsonesque.  I think I may have just coined this term but what I would like a better term to convey is the tendancy to produce flowers which have two ovaries, usually fused together but occasionally separate.  I have a type in my garden which produces one or two flowers like this type each year and I'm sure there are numerous other examples that can be found.

Spikey is a very good descriptive term provided you realise it refers to the petals and not any other aspect of the plant.

Is there a botanist cum Latin-scholar in the house; or anyone good at coining precise and concise descriptive terms?       

[hwscot]

I suspect this calls for a collaborative effort. It needs a snowdrop expert / botanist, clearly, but it also desperately needs someone who ISN'T a specialist, and who therefore may retain a sense of what ordinary words mean to ordinary people.

Of course one of the pleasures of belonging to a particular micro-culture is being able to talk to each other without anyone else having a clue what's being said, and that seems to be true of galanthophiles as much as anyone else.

[steve owen]

Actually, there are different levels of language dependent on which zone of the galanthophile dartboard you inhabit. There is a Bullseye; an Inner Circle; an Outer Circle; and the Edge. For example, I live on the Edge. If you use terms like "applanate vernation" (just an example) you do not live on the edge - or if you do, you are trying to move into one of the other zones.

If there are any Bullseye dwellers lurking, may I hasten to say that living in Bullseye doesn't make you a bad person. And being an Edge dweller doesn't make you an inadequate person. As Clint Eastwood (Californian galanthophile) observed, "a man's gotta know his limitations".
 

[Alan_b]

As a scientist by training, I can spend my whole working day talking to another scientist in the same field without anyone else understanding what is being said.  So in my time off with snowdrops I really don't feel the need to be incomprehensible.  Therefore I don't like using terms like "poculiform" because I don't think even a Latin scholar, who knows what poculiform means, would be able to identify a "poculiform" snowdrop from a random selection.  And poculiform is one of the few descriptive words we have.  On the other hand I'm pretty sure if my imaginary scholar, who understands what the words "applanate" and "vernation" actually mean, were then presented with a range of snowdrops poking their noses up through the ground in January, he/she could go on to identify those types to which the term applies.       

[Sean Fox]

You're a scientist?
Ok then, If H20 is water what is H204? 

[Alan_b]

If H20 is water what is H204?

Drinking, washing etc.

(The technical answer is that there is no such compound as H2O4 but H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide.  I imagine if you could somehow create H2O4 it would immediately decompose into O2 and H2O2)

[mark smyth]

you can't do much with it now the hosepipe ban is in place

[Sean Fox]

Too easy Alan 
You're right Mark, glad we've got Kielder Water for our supply!!

[KentGardener]

If H20 is water what is H204?

Drinking, washing etc.

(The technical answer is that there is no such compound as H2O4 but H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide.  I imagine if you could somehow create H2O4 it would immediately decompose into O2 and H2O2)

That reminded me of a joke I heard 30 years ago in chemistry.

"Poor Johnny was a little lad, but he is no more.  For what he thought was H20 was H2S04"

[steve owen]

you can't do much with it now the hosepipe ban is in place

Mark, National Colle :-*ction Holders are exempt from the hosepipe ban. Seriously!

[Alan_b]

"Poor Johnny was a little lad, but he is no more.  For what he thought was H20 was H2S04"

"Poor Johnny was a little lad, but now he is no more.
For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4."

is the version that scans correctly (i.e the rhythm of the first line is the same as the second).

[David Nicholson]

you can't do much with it now the hosepipe ban is in place

Mark, National Colle :-*ction Holders are exempt from the hosepipe ban. Seriously!

If that is so it's ludicrous.

[Alan_b]

Rank has its privileges, surely?  A National Collection perishing through lack of water would be terrible.   

[David Nicholson]

I'm not in favour of dividing scarce resources by "rank", I much prefer a system of justifiable need. After all national flower collections can't figure all that highly in trying to match scarcity to justifiable need. I would have thought food production to have a much better case.

[steve owen]

Well David, you might think that but enough people in Westminster were persuaded otherwise to make it the law.