Leucojum JCA 630.480

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Sat, 27 Mar 2004 17:23:16 PST
John Grimshaw wrote,

 >This plant [Leucojum tingitanum] is now correctly known as Acis 
tingitana, to follow the very
>sensible suggestion from botanists at Kew that all the small Leucojums with
>narrow leaves and unmarked flowers revert to the old genus Acis, reserving
>Leucojum for the robust, wide-leaved, green-marked L. aestivum and L.
>vernum. That nobody has questioned this extraordinary lumping (inb the
>1880s, by J.G. Baker) in the past is really quite remarkable.

Exactly what is now in Acis? Everything except the two Leucojum species 
with green markings?

The plants I am growing as L. tingitanum (seed from Michael Salmon), from 
which I distributed a few bulbs last summer, flower in late winter. They 
have glaucous leaves with a pronounced keel, about 7 mm wide (the leaf, not 
the keel), and flower stems to 25 cm tall. My reference says L. fontianum 
is "similar to L. nicaeense, but leaves 6-8 mm wide with flowers in April" 
and flower stems to 12 cm tall. L. nicaeense has very narrow dark green 
leaves that tend to lie low to the ground, and is in bud now; and L. 
trichophyllum has threadlike dark leaves. There is also a pretty 
fall-blooming all-white species, L. valentinum. All of these increase quite 
fast in my bulb frames, but I haven't succeeded with them in the open 
garden yet.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA


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