SNOWDROPS. 
33 
out by Mr. Van Tubergen, and this too has curious spathes, larger 
and less united than in the white form. 
A very curious plant, in which the inner segments are all green 
except for a narrow white edge, and the outer ones striped for 
the greater part of their length with a greyish-green, was introduced 
through Herr Max Leichtlin, of Baden, and has been traced to the 
Vienna Botanic Gardens, but no farther. It is a dwarf, late-flowering 
form, known as G. caucasicus virescens, but has no resemblance to 
other forms of caucasicus, and never, so far as I have seen, produces a 
second flower in the pair of leaves as a caucasicus form should. 
There is also a very curious double flower that does not droop, 
and has all its alternating rows of inner and outer segments deeply 
tinged with green. It appeared suddenly in a Scotch garden where 
no other Snowdrops than the ordinary nivalis had been grown. 
Yellow Snowdrops do not perhaps sound beautiful, but when seen 
in the sunshine of a fine February morning a clump of either of the 
yellow forms is very striking. In the var. lutescens the ovary and the 
ordinarily green markings are of a bright yellow. Two distinct forms 
with these golden markings have been found in Northumberland, 
and have travelled thence into many good gardens. 
Last year Mr. Clarence Elliott sent me a flower of a form new 
to me, in which the segments themselves are tinged and striped with 
yellow. It was rather a faded and crumpled flower, but a fresh 
one might well be an attractive addition to the yellow forms. 
In a Cheshire garden there appeared a form of double Snowdrop 
with a green ovary but the markings of the inner segments bright 
yellow. This is a very charming flower, and though in the first 
season, after they have been replanted, some will have green mark- 
ings, it is fairly constant when undisturbed and has a very bright 
effect when fully open. 
The last nivalis form needing mention is a double one raised by 
Mr. Allen, and called by him ' Charmer * florepleno. It differs from 
the ordinary double in having only three of its handsome, large outer 
segments, and the centre filled up with whorls of the green-striped 
inner segments only, thus producing a very neat and regular flower, 
like a double Ranunculus. 
Thus far we have been concerned with forms that are best grouped 
under G. nivalis, the Common Snowdrop. Now we pass to the second 
group, G. plicatus — so named because its leaves are plicate, that is to 
say, folded back or pleated at their edges, at their first appearance 
above ground. The leaf characters offer the most useful means of 
dividing the known Snowdrops into four groups. 
Thus we have the nivalis group, with narrow almost flat leaves, 
more or less glaucous, that is, blue-grey, on their upper face. 
Then plicatus, with broad deep green-leaves folded at their edges. 
G. plicatus is found in the Crimea and Dobrudscha, and is generally 
called the Crimean Snowdrop. When the snow melted away from the 
trenches in which our soldiers passed the bitter winter of the Crimean 
VOL, XLIII, D 
