Snowdrops in the Washington Post
Mark BROWN (Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:24:15 PST)

The atricle was great for neophytes. And does not talk down. I liked its tone.
And I am sure he was refering to all the craze on cultivars. That is recent.
G. nivalis and G. plicatus too, often is an extremely old garden plant in many countries but galanthomania is new.
Cultivars were always a plantsmens province until recently.
Mark

Message du 21/02/13 17:41
De : "Rodger Whitlock"
A : "Pacific Bulb Society"
Copie à :
Objet : Re: [pbs] Snowdrops in the Washington Post

I found the article another product of today's faux journalism. It was
superficial in the extreme, exuding an odor of "oooh, lookie at the odd things
people like." And no effort was made, afaict, to look into snowdrop culture in
the US, which is alive and well in the Pacific Northwest west of the Cascades.
And, very likely, other places.

The reporter appeared to think that a taste for snowdrops is something new in
the New World. Not so. I have Galanthus nivalis that originally came around the
Horn in 1850 when Vancouver Island was first being settled by Europeans, and
I'm confident that there are many plantings traceable much further back than
that along the eastern seaboard.

I'm not a member of the cult of the snowdrop; I like them, but can't get myself
worked up about the very minor variations between many cultivars. Nonetheless,
it's a subject that deserves better than what the Washington Post has printed.

[The G. nivalis I have are the same as all the rest; their historicity is not
horticulturally significant.]
--
Rodger Whitlock

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