On 18 Apr 2009, at 15:06, Diane Whitehead wrote: > Well, Jim, white in and out certainly makes more sense. My clump of > White Splendour has been growing for at least 35 years, so I can't > blame any current bulb sellers for misnaming it. I checked the description of 'White Splendor' in Patrick Synge's "Collins Guide to Bulbs", but the text is silent on the question of coloration in the backs of the petals. The reason I asked about this was my inability to pin down the correct name of a clump of white A. blanda that came to me from a source I no longer remember. My plants agree well with Diane's description of her own, and given the age of her planting, I suspect that the original 'White Splendor' had a colored reverse. That it has been supplanted by a newer form under the same name is no surprise. The Dutch bulb trade has a long tradition of replacing older cultivars with newer one under the same name. The true Narcissus 'King Alfred', for example, hasn't been in commerce for a very long time but something under that name has been available until quite recently. (These days they've gotten a little more honest and say "King Alfred type".) What you get these days as Crocus 'Ladykiller' looks quite different from what I originally had under that name some 30 years ago, but it's possible that that early acquisition was really a form of C. biflorus alexandri. The older 'White Splendor' is a notably vigorous plant, sturdier than the rather frail Anemone blanda forms you often see. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island http://maps.google.ca/maps/…