Acis/Leucojum

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Sun, 19 Dec 2004 08:54:53 PST
Dear All,

In March 2004 we had a good discussion about the proposal to move the small 
Leucojums with narrow leaves and unmarked flowers to the genus Acis leaving 
only L. aestivum and vernum, the robust, wide-leafed, green marked species 
in Leucojum. I had to look it up to remember it all. For those of you who 
have also forgotten or who were not part of our list then, these posts can 
be found in the archives:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbslist/old.php/…

Look under Leucojum and especially the posts from John Grimshaw as he was 
explaining the proposals and Rodger Whitlock's too for his interesting 
information and comments. It is one of those debatable topics that I am 
sure there will always be disagreement about.  John told us that taxonomic 
studies indicated that the two species of Leucojum that are left in that 
genus are more closely related to Galanthus than to the species now in Acis 
that they used to be included with when they were known as Leucojum.

We don't have many of the species now considered Acis pictured on our wiki. 
I expect this is partly because they are difficult to photograph. At least 
I found that true when I was trying to photograph some of mine, but our 
digital camera doesn't do well with focusing on small flowers and often 
chooses the background instead and the manual focus I've not been able to 
figure out and some of the rest of you may do much better. Since Hans grows 
a lot of them, maybe he'll have some photographs to add at some point.

I found Brian's comments about Acis autumnalis (syn. Leucojum autumnale) 
very interesting as he too is more successful with these in pots than in 
the ground. My soil is acidic, sandy, but I don't have summer rainfall so 
if the best flowering he found was in the UK "where it is almost frost free 
under trees on a slope with acid sandy soil" the factor that is different 
is the amount of moisture in summer. I guess as my pot grown plants are 
increasing well it will be time to try it again in the ground in another 
spot. Maybe this next time I'll find a place they will like.

Mary Sue



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