Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Bulbs => Galanthus => Topic started by: Tim Harberd on August 31, 2017, 08:36:24 PM
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Hi Guys,
Does anyone, who lives near Edinburgh, fancy a little assignment?
In recent years I have enjoyed growing the cultivar PHD33643, so I decided to try finding out a little bit more about it.
I presumed that the ‘name’ refered to a herbarium sheet and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh have made their herbarium searchable online. The RGBE Herbarium does include some specimens collected by PH Davis, but none of them seemed to match with PHD33643.
I submitted a website query on the matter and received a helpful reply from Lesley Scott who had checked the Peter Davis collecting books: Number 33643 is listed as Quercus hartwissiana from the Caucasus.
My stock came from Glenchantry, so I asked if they could shed any more light on the issue. I received a very helpful note from Wol Staines saying that their stock came from John Morley. Wol included a photo of the relevant page from a Northgreen catalogue which stated that it originated from Chris Brickell.
I’ve since been in touch with Chris Brickell and he has kindly offered to do a little more research on the problem….
My current feeling is that the ‘name’ DOES refer to an entry in the Peter Davis collecting books and that its likely to be out by one number. So, if I had access to the books, I’d check the ten entries 3364* first. Then 336*3, then 33*43, then 3*643 and finally *3643.
I have no idea whether the books are publicly accessible… Does anyone nearby fancy trying it? A photograph of the relevant entry would be wonderful!
Tim DH
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What a good idea Tim, 'PHD 33643' is one of my favourites ::) and I can never understand why it was never given a proper name. I do hope someone is able to throw light on this. Interestingly I also have a G. 'Grandiflorus' which is a good variety and was sourced from RBGE via Cambridge Botanical Garden and Ann Borrill, however there seems to be no paper trail to be followed for that either!
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It will be a little while before I am in Edinburgh, but if no-one else steps up before then I may be able to help. Will drop you a line when I know I'm heading that way.
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I'll give it a go, Tim. It wont be for a couple of weeks though as I'll be away.
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As Tim probably did, I searched the RBGE Herbariun catalogue online for Galanthus of which there are 165 entries. I found four distinct records where Davis (P.H./Peter H/Peter Hadland) was listed as the collector or co-collector. These were:
- 5392 on 14-Mar-42 in Lebanon
- 25581 on 01-Apr-56 in Turkey
- 26090 on 18-Apr-56 in Turkey
- 26830 on 19-Apr-57 in Turkey
I then tried a search for Davis as collector and 3364* which gave 33643, 33647, 33648, 33649 & 3364K.
Davis as collector and 336*3 gives 33623, 33633 (33643) 33653 33673 & 33683
Davis as collector and 33*43 adds 33043
Davis as collector and 3*643 adds no further entries
Davis as collector and *3643 adds 43643
I also tried *643 to no avail
I tried transposing adjacent numbers and that enabled me to eliminate 33634
All the numbers I have listed above ARE in the online herbarium catalogue and are ARE NOT Galanthus or a similar species. So anyone who goes to consult the book can eliminate the need to look at any of the numbers listed above.
By the way, you can see online a picture of 33643 showing the oak leaves and a typed label that confirms the number.
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Also 43643 dates from 1966. If Brian is correct in his earlier assertion about the date of collection
... that should be PHD 33643, it was collected by Peter Davis in Georgia in the 1970s.
then you should be looking for a much larger collection number.
I notice that Freda Cox's book says the same thing about the place and date; perhaps that is the source of Brian's information? PHD33643 is not featured in the 'Snowdrops' monograph.
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From the North Green Catalogue for 2007:
PHD 33643: this superb form was originally collected by Dr. Peter Davis in Georgia in the 1970s. A snowdrop of great substance and perfect proportions. The delicately fragrant flower has beautifully rounded, strong white outer segments and a clean, dark green heart-shaped mark on the inner segments. We are most grateful to Chris Brickell for this classically beautiful and destirable snowdrop. £25.00
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43643 dates from 1966. So for the 1970s we should be looking for a much larger collection number. 53643 seems like the best bet. Oh, but it isn't because 53615 & 53688 were both collected a few days apart in Morocco in March 1973. It isn't 63643 either because 63627 & 63669 were both collected in Italy on 22nd & 23rd May 1979, respectively.
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More digging in the Herbarium. Davis was in Georgia in June 1959. In fact all of his collections from Georgia in the Herbarium date from that one month. He collected samples in the range 33621 to 33682 there on 11th June, 33683 was on 12th June and then there's a time gap util 33687 on 29th June but still in Georgia. The oak that is 33643 is recorded as collected in Turkey but
he must have crossed the border then crossed back it is evident from the recorded collection location that this is an error.
The 3364* numbers that we don't know about are 33640, 33641, 33642, 36644, 36645 & 36646. The 336*3 numbers that we don't know about are 33603, 33613 & 36693. But we know these should all (or almost all) come from Georgia or very close by. So if the discovery was made in 1959 rather than the 1970s then there are only 9 possibilities if a single digit has been misrecorded.
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By Heck Alan,
Superb work! You’ve got a lot further than me, with the same resources!!… Just to confuse things even more… It was listed in the North Green catalogue as G. plicatus. I attach some photos from recent years. The leaves don’t seem obviously folded to me.
Tim DH
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Mmm not the best of photos, but here is mine. I think I can just make out a bit of folding on one or two leaves when I look at an enlarged photo of the original.
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Just a few more drops of information squeezed from the Herbarium database. On 5th June 1959 Peter Hadland Davis was near Simferopl which is on the Crimean peninsula in what he recorded as Ukraine (but is currently under dispute) where he made collection 33532. Two days later (7th June) he makes collection 33575 still recorded as Ukraine (there are others in between). The next specimen on the database is 33623 on 11th June in Georgia. The collection location is recorded as Caucasus: Distr. Abkhasia: Sukhumi. Sukhumi is the capital of the breakaway Republic of Abkhazia (then, and disputably still, part of Georgia). Abkhasia is a little further clockwise round the black sea coast; perhaps Davis travelled by boat between the two locales?
33643, the oak specimen, also has the recorded location as Abkhasia: Sukhumi so the fact that the country is recorded as Turkey is evidently a mistake. There are multiple collections in the herbarium from 11th June but only one , 33686, from the following day, 12th June.
Then there is a mysterious gap of 16 days until collection 33688 on 29th June. This location is recorded as Georgia:T'bilisi so Davis travelled across Georgia in those "missing" 16 days. He then does a lot of collecting in a short time, of which the last number in the Herbarium is 33927 "Georgia:T'bilisi Collecting locality: Dabahane gorge above Botanical Institute" on 30th June. The next collection number, 33983, is from Switzerland in March 1960.
Assuming Davis collected our mystery snowdrop at some time on this trip, would it have had any leaves remaining or was it collected as a bulb with only a provisional identification? If somebody gains access to the collection books they might need to check for any bulb, identified or not.
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In summary, it is most likely that the snowdrop known as PHD33643 is recorded in the collection book somewhere in the range 33576 to 33687 since all the collections in Abkhasia lie within this range of numbers. It might be recorded as a bulb rather than a Galanthus as it could have been dormant at the time of collection.
If Tim is correct and only one digit is wrong then the possibilities are 33603, 33613, 33640, 33641, 33642, 36644, 36645 & 36646. All other single digit errors in the range are accounted for as herbarium specimens.
If it cannot be found within the suggested range of numbers then the next best possible range is 33689 to 33982 as all the unknown collections in the T'bilisi area lie within this range. 33693, 33743, 33843 & 33943 are the four possibilities with a single digit wrong (as none of these are in the herbarium database).
If a Galanthus or an unidentified bulb cannot be found within either of these suggested ranges of collection numbers then either the information that the snowdrop was collected in Georgia is wrong or Davis made another expedition to Georgia but brought back no samples that are recorded in the herbarium database.
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Allowing for the fact that I shall in future always ask Alan if he can complete my Telegraph crossword whenever I'm stuck, I don't think this will rise very highly in the list of things that cause me to loose sleep ::)
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I guess I just really enjoy playing detective, David. In this instance it turned out that the RBGE Herbarium database held a lot of clues that could be uncovered from the comfort of the seat in front of my computer. I hope somebody does get the opportunity to follow this up and track down the correct collection number for the snowdrop in question. We already know that the original assertion in the North Green catalogue that it was collected in the 1970s is unlikely to be correct.
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I understand John Morley is going to speak to Chris Brickell at some point and hopefully find out what has happened here.
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I understand John Morley is going to speak to Chris Brickell at some point and hopefully find out what has happened here.
I hope we might learn the result of that here, where the greatest number of people can benefit from the information.
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The correct collecting number is 33463, Galanthus plicatus, collected in the Crimea in 1959.
We are in the wonderful RBGE herbarium with the P H Davis collecting books and specimen in front of us.
The specimen label says: "Davis 33463 Galanthus plicatus. Crimea. Distr. Alushta; Centralnaja Kotlovina, between Alushta & Roman Kosh. Alt. 600m. Mixed beech forest. Leaves channelled, with paler median band. Fruits lying on ground. 4.6.195."
The last digit of the date is missing, but the collecting book clearly states 1959.
We'll ask permission to post photos.
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Better still, RBGE staff will do high resolution scans of all the specimens in the folder and make them available online in the next few weeks
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The correct collecting number is 33463, Galanthus plicatus, collected in the Crimea in 1959.
So it was two numbers transposed 33463 instead of 33643. And it was the Crimea, not Georgia - which Davis visited first before travelling on to Georgia. And 1959, not the 1970s; specifically 4th June 1959.
I would love to see the photos/scans. Very well done, Margaret, for finding this out.
I got so excited about Margaret's post that I didn't read it carefully enough originally so I've had to edit my response a few times as I calmed down. As a final edit, it is amusing to observe that everything we thought we knew about this snowdrop was wrong, apart from the fact that it was collected by Peter Hadland Davis.
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Thank you for clearing that up Margaret, I am sure Tim is delighted! It will be interesting to see the herbarium specimens when they are available - I shall have to change my labels ;D
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We’re glad we could help with this. David & I were visiting RBGE for a Meconopsis Group committee meeting yesterday morning and are very grateful to Lesley Scott who responded to our request for a visit to the Herbarium amazingly quickly. Here are the photos we took while we were there, all courtesy of RBGE. The eventual scans of the specimen will be much better quality and downloadable from the RBGE website and we’ll let everyone know when they are available.
It is interesting to note that in the sequence 33084 to 33927 covering Peter Davis’s 1959 travels in both Crimea and the Caucasus, 33463 is the only Galanthus.
‘K.’ refers to a specimen having been deposited at Kew Herbarium and ‘Le.’ that a third went to Leningrad. So for those in the South East a visit to Kew would give sight of one of the original collections.
Lesley also extended a welcome to Scottish Rock members to visit the Herbarium in Edinburgh to look at any specimens. It is a huge privilege to use this wonderful resource and visit requests should be made by email through: herbarium@rbge.org.uk
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Now the herbarium specimens have been tracked down, how did it get into cultivation?
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That's just what I was thinking, Diane. But there are four leaves and only item whcih I take to be a squashed bulb so presumably there was a second bulb that was grown-on that provided the second pair of leaves?
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Now the herbarium specimens have been tracked down, how did it get into cultivation?
Well in one of Margaret's photos it is listed as being passed on to Kew and Leningrad, one has to presume as live material which was increased and passed around the galanthophile community. Note that in my quote from North Green it was passed from Chris Brickell to John Morley, then again increased until there was enough to sell.
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Oh yes, Brian; I had not spotted that. Presumably what we have either derives from Kew or from a bulb Davis kept for the RBGE? I suppose that there is no guarantee that the original bulbs collected were all the same clone anyway.
Tim said in his original post that the stock in current circulation derives from Chris Brickell, that he had already contacted him and that Chris had promised to do more research. Your exact quote from the North Green catalogue confirms this and now that John Morley will also speak to him, Chris may feel a bit under pressure to trawl through his records and recollections. Maybe Chris will be able say where his stock came from? There seems to be a review process for the RBGE stock so snowdrop expert Aaron Davis (University of Reading) seemingly reviewed 33463 in 1994. Could he have been offered and taken a live specimen derived from the original bulb at that time?
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I really can't see what the fuss is now about, am I missing something? Margaret very kindly tracked down the answer to Tim's question. Obviously there was a clump of these snowdrops, obviously the finder shared them between the people that he knew would 'keep it going' and that is how it happened. Chris Brickell was working at Wisley from 1958, these people all knew each other and had snowdrop lunches, things were passed round as gifts, much as today. I can't believe that Chris Brickell will be losing sleep over this. That's how it came into circulation.
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Yes indeed, Brian, I am sure you are absolutely correct and I didn't mean to offend. I just got caught-up in the original mystery surrounding this snowdrop and although this has been resolved I still wondered if any more information about it might emerge. I am quite a fan of the 'Fake or Fortune' TV show where they try to trace the provenance of the artwork under consideration back as far as possible. I don't think we galanthophiles pay enough attention to provenance (which is one reason why people crop-up on ebay selling fake snowdrops). I think this is a pity, I like to remember who I got my plants from, particularly if they were gifts. Tim traced the provenance of this snowdrop back through John Morley to Chris Brickell; wouldn't it be great (I thought to myself) if we could trace it back further, perhaps all the way back to Peter Davis himself.
Incidentally, Kew also have an online Herbarium database but I could find no mention of a Galanthus collected by P H Davis, just three contributions from A P Davis. Plenty of other contributions by P H Davis, however.
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Yes indeed, Brian, I am sure you are absolutely correct and I didn't mean to offend...I don't think we galanthophiles pay enough attention to provenance.
No offence was taken, I just don't see the point, and at the same time I do disagree with the last part. I was always taught that provenance is everything with bulbs, and I am sure this has got the necessary provenance - especially when you consider the people who are involved.
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Brian you say "Mission accomplished" whilst I want mission creep. I do agree that if this cultivar had derived originally from Chris Brickell or John Morley or Wol & Sue Staines then the fact that any one of them thought it worthy of cultivation would give it a very good provenance and the fact that all three did must make it highly rated indeed. But now my interest has been piqued, I remain curious about the early history of this snowdrop in cultivation and how if got from Peter Davis to Chris Brickell; I'm just a curious fellow, I suppose.
Speaking of which, I wonder what has become of Tim Harberd, who proposed the mission?
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I met Wol Staines at an AGS event on Saturday. He mentioned that he had changed his labels to show the correct collection number (PHD 33463).
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there are four leaves and only item which I take to be a squashed bulb so presumably there was a second bulb that was grown-on that provided the second pair of leaves?
What about the fruit that the report says were lying all over the ground? Were the seeds collected
and distributed?
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Alas, Diane, all this happened 58 years ago and unless Peter Hadland Davis kept notes and those notes form part of the archive of his papers that was kept after he died then it is very unlikely that such information could ever be found. It could also muddy the waters considerably if seed had been collected and all the seedlings were known by the same collection number. However as far as we know, all the stock in current circulation derives from Chris Brickell.
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Wonderful News!
I apologize for my long silence... I've been away for a week.
I'll read this all more carefully tomorrow.
Many thanks to everyone involved.
Tim DH
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Having now carefully read the trail I have two final (for the time being) thoughts on this matter:
Firstly: Brian mentions wishing the cultivar had a 'better' name. When I first received it, Wol suggested that a 'proper' name was imminent. However, if I'd got it with an 'ordinary' name that would not have triggered my curiosity. So, my 'two penneth' would be, let's leave it alone. Except of course with the numbers in the right order!!
Secondly: My understanding of most 'wild' plants in cultivation is that they are superior (in some respect) examples of those found in the field. In this case, given that the material was collected so late in the season, it appears to be 'pot luck' that the plant turned out to be considered 'worth' growing. Which begs the question as to whether it is a superior form, within its native population, or not! (I wonder whether our well travelled chief detective will be able to let that thought rest!!)
(I have emailed my thanks to Lesley Scott for making the collecting books accessible to the Thornes.)
Tim DH
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Any change of name or designation risks confusion. I wonder how many people who own PDH33643 will buy PHD33463 on the basis that it is a different snowdrop? In this instance probably nobody, because you would need to be highly observant to even spot the difference. But it could happen if the name were changed to something 'proper'. If that does happen, I hope that Peter Hadland Davis is not lost in the change.
I agree with the 'pot-luck' theory of discovery, at least insofar as there were no flowers left and may well have been both multiple bulbs and possibly also seeds collected. But perhaps something interesting about the leaves motivated the selection? In my experience if you see an unusual snowdrop amongst a large number it can be very difficult to find it again if you return to the same spot, particularly if more than a few days have elapsed. After 58 years I have no idea what could have happened.
Although I tried to be a detective, I didn't achieve anything beyond the throwaway suggestion that two numbers might have been transposed and the elimination of some possibilities. I got too hung-up on the idea that the collection really was made in Georgia even though I found out that PHD had first visited the Crimea, where he was probably more likely to find Galanthus plicatus.
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However, if I'd got it with an 'ordinary' name that would not have triggered my curiosity. So, my 'two penneth' would be, let's leave it alone.
Perhaps best and leave it until the next edition of the Monograph ;)
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What a tease!
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The scanned image of PHD 33463 can now be found at http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb/E00855758 (http://data.rbge.org.uk/herb/E00855758)
Thanks to RBGE for making this available.
There is also a Peter Hadland Davis ‘collection’ (Reference GB235 DPH) in the RBGE Archive, so that undoubtedly contains some interesting information too
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My PHD 33463 is starting to show itself again. As always, nice even/consistent noses… and it’s got me thinking again.
Just because my stock came with a label that can be attributed to the Northgreen catalogue of 2007 That does not mean (or prove) that all the bulbs which left Northgreen in 2007 are the same cultivar! There are too many places where something could have gone wrong.
I’m quite convinced that mine, even tho’ I love it, is not actually PHD 33463. But Northgreen might have had the genuine article!
SO: There is one more thing we can check:
Is anybody growing anything under the label PHD33463 which is plicate? Or has ‘’Leaves channelled, with paler median band.’’
Let me be quite clear… I’m not interested in finding out where things went wrong (or blaming anyone)… I’m more than happy with my plants. But I am curious about whether the real thing still exists.
Curiously…. There is of course no guarantee that true PHD 33463 is actually worth tracking down! It might be quite a disappointment compared to my usurper!!
Tim DH
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Chris Brickell has said that the plant which has been circulated under the wrong PHD collection number should be called G.'Peter Davis' - which is a lot easier to remember and avoids the confusion of the collection numbering.
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Interesting thread and agree it should progress beyond a number; I uploaded a load of photos last night and these are PHD33463, ex PHD33643 now 'Peter Davies' (if formalised?) from 04 Feb this year; some explication apparent - it is under cover due to the snow so can't check beyond what is apparent in the photo:
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I'm a little sad that such an interesting detective story will be consigned to history by the renaming of this snowdrop. I'm also disappointed that the name will be 'Peter Davis' rather than 'Peter Hadland Davis' as per the initials PHD. I suppose he must have been just 'Peter Davis' to his friends and colleagues but there must be thousands of people named 'Peter Davis' and possibly only one named 'Peter Hadland Davis'; he even has a Wikipedia entry under this full name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hadland_Davis
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Important point Alan, as pointed out in Margaret Thorne's post above the RBGE Archive refers to Mr(?) Davies by his full given names too. Surely it would be right to refer to his full name in this particular Snowdrop's case.
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I would have thought that, David, but it is for Chris Brickell to decide.