A photo in the January 2011 issue of Mein schöner Garten had me puzzled and excited. It seemed to show a Galanthus with a cluster of blooms rather than the usual one. I kept staring at it wondering what it was – maybe one of the late-winter/vernal Acis? The photo shows Dutch snowdrop enthusiast Annie Fallinger (according to the article she grown about 500 sorts) holding a wooden box tray with pots of blooming snowdrops. What look like multi-flowered stems seem at first glance to be in the back row of pots. It took me a moment to figure out what I was looking at. It finally dawned on me: she’s wearing a red jacket which bears two pictures of snowdrops, bunches of snowdrops. These line up well in the photo with the real snowdrops she is carrying, so well that they seem to be attached to stems in the pots. There is also a photo of the cultivar ‘Godfrey Owen’ which shows (or rather is said to have) six inner segments and six outer segments (i.e. double the usual numbers of each). When we speak of “double snowdrops” we usually mean those with multiplied inner segments. The term poculiform has been used to describe those with inners and outers of about the same size. Can anyone update us on current usage among galanthomanes? Also, to those to whom I have promised snowdrops: it isn’t going to happen anytime soon. We’re frozen solid here. Look for them in bloom in the mail in late winter. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/