12 Christmas-flowering bulbs
John Grimshaw (Tue, 25 Dec 2007 11:28:18 PST)

Antoine Hoog wrote: I see no reason to discuss
the silvery-white central stripe on the leaves of ssp. vernalis when this
feature is present to the same extent in ssp. reginae-olgae.

This is absolutely true, but the interest in the grey stripe is that its
presence separates Galanthus reginae-olgae from G. nivalis. We do not really
know enough about the interface between the two taxa in the Balkans - I
would love to be able tro go about and explore the early snowdrops to try to
clarify in my mind at least how these things differ.

In my own garden today Galanthus plicatus 'Three Ships' and G. elwesii
'Potter's Prelude' are flowering nicely.

John Grimshaw

Dr John M. Grimshaw
Sycamore Cottage
Colesbourne
Nr Cheltenham
Gloucestershire GL53 9NP

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