Ornithogalum conicum Jacq.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘This [Ornithogalum lacteum] is a native of South Africa; it was introduced some years since: we received ours from Mr. Synnet, who brought it from the Cape.  It flowered in June: the blossoms are beautiful, and of a most delicate white; the stems usually two feet high.  It requires the greenhouse, and when in a dormant state should have little or no water.  It rarely increases itself by offsets from the bulbs.  The soil should be sandy loam’  [LBC no.1159/1827]. 

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine figures Ornithogalum lacteum [BM t.1134/1808] and O. conicum: ‘We are indebted for our knowledge of this plant to Baron Ludwig, who sent bulbs from the Cape of Good Hope to the Glasgow Botanic Garden, in 1835.  Flowering specimens were produced in the greenhouse in the summer of the same year.  The flowers are large, handsome, pure white, the sepals acuminate, spreading, but never curled back as in O. revolutum, to which this plant, in other respects, bears some affinity.’  [BM t.3538/1830].  Andrews’ Botanical Repository cites the introducer of O. lacteum as Lady Miller of Alton, in 1796. 

Victorian authors usually treated Ornithogalum lacteum, and O. conicum as separate species, introduced to Britain in 1796 and 1823 respectively.  [JD, PD].  Ornithogalum thyrsoides Jacq., the true Chincherinchee, has been considered synonymous by some authors but is generally treated as a separate species.

History at Camden Park

Listed in all published catalogues [B.360/1843].  Received per ‘Sovereign’ February 1831.  [MP A2948].

Notes

Ornithogalum lacteum Vill. (1787) = Ornithogalum narbonense L., a Mediterranean species.