I am very keen on the idea of Lady Macbeth's Red-spotted Snowdrop: it would liven things up no end! John Grimshaw Gardens Cottage Colesbourne Nr Cheltenham Gloucestershire GL53 9NP Website: http://www.colesbournegardens.org.uk/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim McKenney" <jimmckenney@starpower.net> To: <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 7:41 PM Subject: [pbs] Prelude to the afternoon of the snowdrops > The following was written in jest. For those of you who do not speak > gardener's Greek fluently, a glossary is provided at the conclusion. > > It helps to know what words mean. Here's a little story, a sort of > snowdrops for dummies story, with yours-truly as the butt of the joke. > > >From some recent postings I've realized that I obviously don't know what > Galanthus caucasicus is, that I've probably been using the term incorrectly. > > Our local chapter of the ARGS runs a yearly piece on plants blooming on New > Year's Day. Several members reported something called Galanthus elwesii > monostictus. I had never heard of Galanthus elwesii monostictus. The editor > kindly included in parentheses the synonym Galanthus caucasicus. Then it > hit me: monostictus means one-spotted. If you've been growing snowdrops as > long as I have, you'll remember the days when one of the first things you > learned was that Galanthus elwesii is distinguished by the two spots or the > fused spots on the inner perianth segments. Obviously the concept of > Galanthus elwesii has been revamped (and evidently by a horticulturist or a > botanist with strong horticultural ties): in addition to the traditional > two spotted forms, there are now monostictus or one-spotted forms. And some > of these monostictus forms are aparently my old pal Galanthus caucasicus. > Live and learn - and get used to the red facial flush! > > With this in mind, I ran out into the garden to check the spotting on my > Galanthus elwesii. Many have yet to bloom, so I thought I had best be > prepared. I have labels ready for the following should they appear: > monostictus, distictus, tristictus, tetrastictus, pentastictus, > hexastictus, hebdostictus, myriostictus, polystictus, hemistictus, > astictus, leucostictus (often confused with astictus but they really are > quite distinct), chrysostictus, chlorostictus, macrostictus, microstictus, > eustictus, pseudostictus, and my favorite, the rare Out!damnedstictus!. > > > The glossary: > > monostictus: one-spotted > distictus: two-spotted > tristictus: three-spotted > tetrastictus: four-spotted > pentastictus: five-spotted > hexastictus: six-spotted > hebdostictus: seven-spotted > polystictus: many-spotted > myriostictus: thousand-spotted > hemistictus: partly spotted > astictus: lacking spots > leucostictus: white-spotted > chrysostictus: golden-spotted > chlorostictus: green-spotted > macrostictus: large-spotted > microstictus: small-spotted > eustictus: well-spotted > pseudostictus: not really spotted > Out!damnedstictus! : Lady Macbeth's red-spotted snowdrop > > Jim McKenney > jimmckeney@starpower.net > Montgomery County, Maryland zone 7, where we're having a spot of what the > local weatherpeople call wintery mix. > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php