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kevinscottgardens · 5 years ago

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27 January - 2 February 2020

What a week. We were without gas at home until Thursday! Now all is back to normal. I found out some very dear friends, Elizabeth, Rob and Alessia, are moving to New York City for two years. This is in addition to Denis and André, who told me two weeks ago, they will try to move to France by the end of the year - eager to remain Europeans. Friday evening at 22.00 GMT Brexit finally happened which is very depressing.

Saturday morning I finally started making the lasagne for which I bought all the ingredients last weekend before the gas was turned off. Saturday afternoon I visited Rui in Kennington and we had a good catch up over one of his one-pot specialities. Then we wandered over to Mercato Metropolitano, a vibrant location with lots of nice things to eat, in Elephant and Castle. We enjoyed gelato for dessert. Then I headed to Barnes Bridge to visit Elizabeth and Alessia for pre-dinner drinks and a stint in the jacuzzi. Elizabeth caught me up on her whirl-wind trip to New York City last week, where Alessia had three days of interviews at schools to start in September. Then I headed to Clapham for a very nice evening at Sonja and James’ home for dinner.

This morning I made my way to work where I ran back-to-back workshops, for groups of twelve, on how to make kokedamas. It was a fun day, though exhausting. I’ve been asked to review the garden’s Galanthus collection and that is what I worked on most of last week. I’m going to verify all the names, find out what species we are missing, where to purchase them, and their ideal growing conditions. Galanthus nivalis is the most common western European snowdrop. Then, there are about twenty others starting from Italy, through Turkey to Iran.

Plant of the week

Amaryllidaceae Galanthus nivalis L.

common name(s) - common snowdrop, snowdrop synonym(s) - Chianthemum nivale (L.) Kuntze; Galanthus alexandri Porcius; G. imperati Bertol.; G. melvillei Voss; G. montanus Schur; G. nivalis var. atkinsii Mallett; G. nivalis var. hololeuca Celak.; G. nivalis subsp. imperati (Bertol.) K.Richt.; G. nivalis var. majus Ten.; G. nivalis var. minus Ten.; G. nivalis f. pictus K.Malý; G. nivalis f. pleniflorus P.D.Sell; G. nivalis var. scharlockii Casp.; G. nivalis var. spitzneri Podp.; G. scharlokii (Casp.) Baker G. umbricus Dammann conservation rating - Near Threatened native to - Pyrenees to Ukraine location - Embankment west, accession 2016-0197 leaves - applanate in vernation (are held flat against each other in bud), more or less linear and 50mm to 150mm long x 4mm to 8mm wide at flowering; smooth and semi-glaucous (dull greyish green) flowers - consists of six tepals, outer three are larger and more convex than the inner ones; inner flower segments are usually marked on their outer surface with a green or greenish-yellow V- or U-shaped mark over the small sinus (notch) at the tip of each tepal habit - perennial, herbaceous bulbs, to around 70mm to150mm tall habitat - most frequently occurring in moist conditions in deciduous woodland (Fagus silvatica, Quercus spp., Carpinus spp. etc.), and occasionally in coniferous woodland (Abies spp.). Also occurring in meadows, pasture, amongst scrub, near rivers and on stony slopes, particularly on calcareous soils. pests - narcissus bulb fly and slugs disease - Stagonospora curtisii, Botrytis galanthina hardiness - to -15ºC (H5) soil - humus-rich, moist and well-drained soil that does not dry out in summer sun - part shade propagation - by offset bulbs, either by careful division of clumps in full growth (in the green), or removed when the plants are dormant, immediately after the leaves have withered; or by seeds sown either when ripe, or in spring. Professional growers and keen amateurs also use such methods as twin-scaling (using twin-scaling it is possible to multiply one bulb into 16 to 32 (or more) viable bulbs in a couple of years, whereas natural propagation might only lead to a doubling every two years or so) to increase the stock of choice cultivars quickly. nomenclature - Amaryllidaceae - the name of a country girl in Virgil’s writings; Galanthus - milk-white flower; nivalis - snowy, snow-white, growing near snow NB - In 1983, Andreas Plaitakis and Roger Duvoisin suggested that the mysterious magical herb, moly, that appears in Homer's ‘Odyssey’ is the snowdrop. An active substance in snowdrop is called galantamine, which, as an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, could have acted as an antidote to Circe's poisons. Further supporting this notion are notes made during the fourth century BC by the Greek scholar Theophrastus who wrote in ‘Historia plantarum’ that moly was "used as an antidote against poisons" although which specific poisons it was effective against remains unclear. Galantamine (or galanthamine) is used to treat mild to moderate dementia (problems with mental function or doing daily tasks) associated with Alzheimer’s disease. People with this disease have low amounts of a chemical acetylcholine in their brains. A decreased amount of acetylcholine has been linked to dementia. Galantamine works to prevent the breakdown of acetylcholine. This increases the concentration of the chemical in the brain, and may help decrease the symptoms of dementia. It is not a cure. Galantamine also occurs naturally in daffodils and other narcissi. Galanthus nivalis is also an emmenagogue, and as such it stimulates or increases menstrual flow and so can induce an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.

References, bibliography:

Gledhill, David, (2008) “The Names of Plants”, fourth edition; Cambridge University Press; ISBN: 978-0-52168-553-5

IUCN [online] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/162168/5551773#habitat-ecology [2 Feb 20]

Plant List, The [online] http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/kew-307568 [2 Feb 20]

Plants of the World [online] http://plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:64496-1 [2 Feb 20]

Royal Horticultural Society [online] https://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants/7568/Galanthus-nivalis/Details [2 Feb 20]

Wikipedia [online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galanthus_nivalis [2 Feb 20]

#Galanthus nivalis

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