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.