Bulbocodiums grow in vast quantities. On a sixty mile drive westward from Toro to Salamanca Wendy and I once saw probably 50 to 100 million (see TDS - Summer 1994). Bulbocodiums are often difficult to identify, some populations being uniform but many are very variable.

Fields of N. bulbocodium ssp. bulbocodium ................................................N. cantabricus monophyllus

It is very rare to find two subspecies growing together where there is a clear division between the two, however between Guadarrama and Madrid we found what we believe to be var. nivalis and var. graellsii growing about twenty yards apart. Between the two but very close to the nivalis were a number of hybrids, in form midway between the two. If the parents were correctly identified then the hybrid was N x carpetanus.

Fernandez Casas proposed that N. hedraeanthus is a sub-species of N. cantabricus and that it is a hybrid from that species in the distant past. (see Blanchard p146)

Michael Salmon proposed that N. hedraeanthus should be placed in a subsection Luteae along with N. luteolentus. (see RHS 1991-2 p35). The latter can be seen as the parent itself of a hybrid in the section of this home page - Bulbocodium and Triandrus.