32 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
but not in stature. I have never been able to decide whether this 
or ' Charmer ' is the more perfect flower." 
Unfortunately ' Charmer ' seems to have been lost, and I have 
never been able to hear of it, and a rival to ' Galatea ' would indeed 
be worth finding. This is the largest-flowered of the race of seedlings 
that are best classed as nivalis forms, and the flowers are of such 
good substance that they last in beauty longer than those of most 
forms. A strong bulb gives a second flower from its pair of leaves, 
and that and a slightly rolled edge to the leaf show the influence of 
plicatus somewhere in its pedigree. 
Several forms of the Common Snowdrop have been found in Greece 
which flower in the autumn instead of the New Year, and send up 
their flowers before the leaves, or at any rate while they are only 
just appearing above ground. When the leaves of these five varieties 
are fully grown they are all noticeable for the pronounced contrast 
of a glaucous central stripe with the deep green of their sides. They 
are best regarded as forms of nivalis, and vary very slightly from one 
another, but retain certain characters of time of flowering and size 
of the green markings. That known as Olgae is generally the earliest 
to flower, coming up as soon as the late September rains moisten 
the ground. It was found by the botanist Orphanides on Mount 
Taygetus. The green is very pale in an old blossom, and fades out 
entirely if such a one be dried. This has resulted in its being 
described as without green markings. 
The form known as Rachelae is the handsomest and most robust 
of these autumnal forms. It flowers in mid-October. When Pro- 
fessor Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin, was in Greece, he collected 
a few bulbs at random to send to his friend Mr. Burbidge. Among 
them was a solitary bulb of this Snowdrop collected in 1884 on Mount 
Hymettus. The few that now exist in our gardens are all descendants 
of this one bulb. It and another variety known as G. Elsae, found 
on Mount Athos, were named after Professor Mahaffy's two 
daughters. 
Green Snowdrops are perhaps more interesting than beautiful. 
They seem to be reversions to ancestral forms with Leucoium- 
like green spots near the tips of the outer segments, and forms with 
tendencies to these green markings have been found in all four of 
the distinct races of Snowdrops. 
The earliest found and best known of them is a form of nivalis 
called Scharlokii. It was found by Herr Julius Scharlok in 1868 
in the valley of the Nahe, a tributary of the Rhine. In figure 9 
you will notice that, besides the extra green markings, it is very re- 
markable in having the two leaves that form the spathe free and 
distinct instead of joined together by membrane as in other Snow- 
drops. This also may be an ancestral form, and is not very constant, 
as in some seasons many flowers appear with the spathes united for half 
or more of their length. 
A somewhat similar variety appeared among the large form sent 
