This content is syndicated via RSS from the blog: Iowa Garden
Galanthus 'Bitton' is a very small snowdrop; a nivalis clone (nivalis being the small 'English' or 'European' snowdrop species). Bitton is known for being a husky version of nivalis and for having a thick, straight flower stem (a rather relative thing, since nivalis is such a tiny, frail-looking little thing... we're talking about a sturdy version of a four inch tall flower). I assume this clone is named after either the Parish of Bitton, or Bitton Village which lies in that parish; they are in the county of Gloucester, in S.E. Great Britain; a lovely spot indeed, which many years ago I traversed traveling to Bath, on my way to Cornwall to go hiking. I eventually found that Gloucester is pronounced gloss-ter, much to the amusement in the meantime of the locals (though they had no ready answer when I asked why they kept wasting time and ink putting syllables in their words if they weren't going to ever pronounce them). I only later thought I should also have asked if Gloucester is Glosster and Worcester is Wooster why isn't Winchester pronounced Winster? They probably wouldn't have had an answer to that either.
03-25-2008, 08:14 AM
