All: What Galanthus do well for you outdoors? Several survive in my rain near Vancouver but the only one that burgeons is nivalis. It's up in crowds but still mute. This strain makes a thick turf of many tiers, seizing territory by both seeds and pups. A friend brought it from England to Canada before the Second World War -- a vague provenance not worth mentioning, since nivalis is so common, except that some gardeners in our climate lose nivalis over and over, and we do nothing to encourage ours, indeed often try vainly to remove it from one spot or another.
Inspired by the monograph by John Grimshaw et al. (John, are you still on Alpine-L?), I determined to check my own snowdrops for variations. I defined a patch of blooming nivalis about 5 x 5 metres and inspected the flowers daily, crawling about with a magnifying loup and losing my glasses often. Sure enough, there was immense variation in every plant part. But most of it was outside the pale. There doesn't seem to be any interest in fat stems, for example. I did, however, dig up and isolate a lot of plants whose puppy-dog ears had greenish tips. Perhaps in time they will cross, producing a frog-green wonder. And yet part of me hopes not, for at heart I am a species, and wild-plant, bigot. Here's to variation. Paige _______________________________________________ Alpine-l mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l
