SNOWDROPS. 
35 
The fourth group contains G. Elwesii and its many varieties. They 
come from Asia Minor, and are for the most part handsome and large. 
The leaves are more uniformly glaucous than in other Snowdrops, and 
are generally very wide and concave on their upper surface, but vary 
enormously. So also do the flowers, but they almost always show a 
second large patch of green at the base of the inner segments. This 
may be joined to the horseshoe-marking by a narrow central line, 
or in some varieties almost covers up the whole of the inner segment. 
Some abnormal forms have green spots on the outer segments (fig. 14), 
and some (fig. 15) are without the second green spot. I have seen 
only two in which it is missing, though I have heard of another in 
Mr. Boyd's garden. 
Many people complain of the difficulty they find in growing G. 
Elwesii, and that it dies out after a year or two. In other gardens 
it increases fairly well from offsets, and rapidly from self-sown seed. 
With me it likes a fairly open situation, so that it may get well ripened 
in summer. It has died out when planted under shrubs, but has 
seeded and increased well in a rather dry peat-bed planted among 
dwarf Heaths, and I believe is going to do well in a bed of Ivy under a 
Deodar, a very hot and dry position. In some steep and well-drained 
banks of the rock-garden it has also increased well. 
It has been very largely collected of late years — before the war, 
of course — and among collected bulbs, early and late, dwarf and tall, 
round and long-flowered, and many types of variation can be found. 
It hybridizes easily with other species, and the seedlings are as a 
rule vigorous and handsome. One of Mr. Allen's seedlings, called 
by him ' Robin Hood,' is Elwesii X plicatus, and though it shows 
but little of the folded leaf of plicatus, yet the characters of both 
parents may be seen in the foliage and even more clearly in the flowers, 
which have the large, rounded outer segments of Elwesii, while the 
inner ones have the deep green of plicatus and the additional amount 
of it of Elwesii. 
Mr. Elwes gave me a very curious Snowdrop he found at Coles- 
borne among groups of G. Elwesii. When first the flowers open they 
are on such short stems that they are hardly lifted above the ground. 
Later on they grow taller, and strong bulbs throw up a second flower. 
The leaves spread outwards in a very marked manner, and the ovary 
is peculiarly long and narrow for any Snowdrop of Elwesii relationship. 
I think it must be a hybrid, and suggest that it has been produced 
by a cross of Elwesii and caucasicus. 
G. byzantinus (fig. 16) is supposed to be a natural hybrid between 
Elwesii and plicatus. It was introduced in 1893, and has since been 
largely collected near Broussa. It has the wide folded foliage of 
plicatus, but of a lighter and more glaucous green, while the flowers 
are similar to those of Elwesii, and very variable in their markings 
and shape. It is a beautiful garden plant, as where it does well it 
is one of the earliest of those that follow the autumnal forms. It 
generally appears above ground here in November, and bears many 
