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A fairy vigorous snowdrop with glossy green leaves. Found in the gardens at Anglesey Abbey. Sometimes produces an extra outer petal.
This is a quite remarkable little cultivar. It has rather compact broad leaves that make a tidy clump. They are bright green
without any significant trace of grey. It was originally though to be a hybrid, possibly with G.lagedochianus
as one parent, but recent research suggests that it is simply a very strange variant of G.nivalis. It is certainly odd.
As a young plant it had large flowers, but they were formed in the traditional snowdrop mould - three small inner segments with a green mark
and three larger pure white outer sements. As the clump has grown and the plant matures I am getting a lot more
irregular flowers. Many have four large outer segments and this year I had one with five. The inner segments may be normal, but often they are
rather large and the green mark is reduced or absent. In this form it resembles 'Poculiformis', with six large white outer segments,
but I have never had a flower that had six perfectly formed regular outer segments. Mine always lose the plot halfway through and once gone, the plot remains lost.
The flowers have a vague sense of an Acis species about them, which is understandable, but they also remind me of
Olsynium douglasii 'Album' - my stock commonly produces large flowers that are twisted and entwined rather loosely about the
idea of perfection.
The cultivar originated in the eponymous National Trust garden in Cambridgeshire and it is thought to be a small number of very similar seedlings,
certainly there are some slight differences between plants, though as I said, it has become more erratic here as the clump has increased.
When I bought it, in 2006, I was happy to have a plant with large flowers and distinctive green leaves. As it has increased it has become a favourite.
It has produced a tidy clump which flowers freely and reliably. The large pure white flowers look especially fresh against the green leaves. In
the middle of the snowdrop season it stands out at a distance.
One of the more erratic flowers. It has performed well this year although the weather has been unreliable and it got a bit slug damaged.
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