Spindlestone Surprise/Primrose Warburg

[annew]

Sorting through my snowdrops yesterday I came to the knotty problem of how to tell the difference between Spindlestone Surprise and Primrose Warburg. Superficially they are identical, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't offering the same snowdrop under two different names. I brought one of each, randomly selected, into the house and sat down with The Book to compare them.
According to Matt and John, the differences are as follows:
Spindlestone Surprise:
leaves without yellowish pallor
spathe more or less equal to the pedicel
mark on inner segments - 'arms' are distinctly narrowed
Primrose Warburg:
yellow-tinged leaves
mark on inner segments - 'arm' ends distinctly rounded

Firstly the leaves - you need to have the two together to see the difference, but PW does have yellower leaves than SS.
Spathe - PW is longer than SS
Flower mark - confirmed, SS has narrowed ends, PW rounded.

[Thomas Seiler]

'Primrose Warburg' always has a good yellow mark and ovary in my garden whereas 'Spindlestone Surprise' tends to a more greenish yellow. Your photographs prove this too, Ann.

[Alan_b]

It's fantastic the amount of work that went into 'The Book' that you can look-up the minutiae of such differences.

[Sean Fox]

It may just be localized to my neck of the woods but Spindlestone Surprise tends to flower earlier than Primrose Warburg. Spindlestone Surprise also grows/multiplies a lot faster.

[annew]

Thanks for your comments. Yes, we owe a great deal to the authors of The Book.

[mark smyth]

My Primrose Warburg are also later to flower

[scatigaz]

Which would you choose if you could only have one?

[mark smyth]

Primrose bulks quicker for me

[Carolyn Walker]

Anne, What a very useful comparison, I have been wondering about the differences.  I only had PW until last fall when I got SS and more PW.  Now I have a sample of both acquired at the same time in as close as you can get to identical cultural conditions so I hope to make my own comparison.  I also don't know what I would do without The Book.  This forum is wonderful too.  I am starting to be able to identify a lot of snowdrops from a photo even though I have never seen them in the flesh just from reading the Book and the forum (special thanks to Matt and Maggi).

Primrose Warburg has bulked up very quickly for me too.

[Brian Ellis]

Which would you choose if you could only have one?

The one that grows best in your garden conditions, unfortunately the only way to find that out is to have both to start with!

[Hagen Engelmann]

So it is!!!

[Thomas Seiler]

You really need both, they are distinct! And there is not much choice else of yellow good doers.

[annew]

Yet.... ..

[Brian Ellis]

Funnily enough they were mentioned today in the CGS talks in the vein of "This one does well in my garden yet that one doesn't and a friend says the complete opposite"!

[Leena]

My Primrose Warburg are also later to flower

This is good information for me, because here the later flowering may (possibly, don't know for sure yet) do better in the long run.
This winter we have little snow and lot of snowdrops are coming up now, but the last four winters there was so much snow that it took a long time for it to melt, and the early snowdrops flowered inside the snow. I don't know if it will affect to their vigour, perhaps established clumps don't mind it.

Anne, thank you for making the comparisons with pictures.