I would like to introduce Dryad nursery’s new autumn-flowering snowdrops: DRYAD PRINCESS, DRYAD DUCHESS, DRYAD COUNTESS and DRYAD EMPRESS – together the DRYAD ARISTOCRATS GROUP.
They are hybrids between G. reginae-olgae ‘Cambridge’ and my favourite small form of G. peshmenii, a deliberate cross made in 2013. The first flowers opened in October 2019, and it became clear that we had something very special.
The flowers were of heavy substance, with corrugated outer segments and a nice variation in height and inner markings. The bulbs were healthy and increased over the next two years, often giving more than one scape per bulb. The outstanding feature, though, was the strong, rich, sweet scent common to the seedlings, quite unlike the usual honey scent of the parents.
The leaves were just emerging at the time of flowering, so the flowers were presented well in their pots. Later, on emergence, the leaves showed the pale median stripe typical of G. reginae -olgae.
In the last three years of flowering, no seed has been set on any of the seedlings.
This autumn I cross pollinated the seedlings together. If no seed is set this year, I will feel safe in assuming they are sterile hybrids. Considering the unusual texture of the flowers and the distinctive perfume, as well as the vigour of the seedlings, I already feel confident of their hybridity.
The DRYAD ARISTOCRATS group are desirable and vigorous new additions to snowdrop collections, offering matchless large flowers of heavy substance and texture, easy to grow under glass with a dry summer rest, which will fill a greenhouse with a rich perfume on sunny autumn days.
There will be a more complete description and more images in the next International Rock Gardener online magazine in a few weeks time.
The first image is of the seedlings at first flowering, each pot being a different clone. Second image is of three of the new varieties for comparison. Following are images of each of the four new cultivars, in alphabetical order.
