Schnarfia

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The old genus Scilla consists of plants grouped together only because they were mostly small and blue. Many are not actually closely related and around 16 new genera have emerged from a re-examination of Scilla. The differences that define the new genera may sound insignificant to the gardener and not all botanists agree with it, though it does seem sensible.

Schnarfia commemorates Karl Schnarf, a distinguished Austrian Embryologist, with a special interest in Scilla. It is totally European and it contains just 2 species, S. messeniaca (which is NOT Scilla messeniaca) and S. albanica.

Schnarfia scapes are semi-terete and floppy in fruit and it makes several scapes per bulb each season, which is valuable from a gardener’s point of view. The bracts and bracteoles are small. The seed capsules are succulent and the seeds are a distinctive glossy, yellow-brown with a solid appendage.

(Scilla makes one scape per bulb, terete stems which flop over in fruit, small (or no) bracts, no bracteoles. Scilla capsules are only slightly succulent, the seeds are glossy, (yellowish to) black with a soft appendage.

Schnarfia messeniaca

Flat green leaves below blue flowers held on short stalks, in a long spike along a pink scape. Each bulb can make several spikes, depending on size. When young, the blue stars are infused with a very pale pink-purple. This makes large bulbs in time and if undisturbed they make persistent, contractile roots.

Likes a sunny, well drained soil but not too much drying out in the summer, making it ideal in the garden

Schnarfia messeniaca is NOT a synonym of Scilla messeniaca. There are two different species involved here. It is an easy mistake to make with the proposed name changes which are flying about but Scilla messeniaca, under whatever name it acquires in the new classification, is not and never has been the same as Schnarfia messeniaca. I have a direct confirmation of this precise detail from Franz Speta, the botanist who described Schnarfia - both are valid, they are distinct and they are two different species.

Schnarfia has characteristic, wide, flat, green leaves (not glaucous, not channelled as in Scilla messeniaca). In cultivation Schnarfia flowers 3-4 weeks ahead of the Scilla. Both are from Messenia, in Greek Peloponnesos.


Schnarfia messeniacaschmesmes	£4.50
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