Thankfully Galton is gone, but pure white flowers remain

Francis Galton was an immoral, racist and, at times, unscientific professor at University College London in the latter half of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries. He was by all accounts a brilliant statistician, as well as the creator of the infamous pseudoscience, eugenics. A deeply flawed character in a deeply flawed society, as Angela Sani reminds us in a piece written for The Guardian in 2019.

Sir Francis was also a traveler and explorer, spending some time in Africa in the 1840s, leading to the French Botanist, Joseph Decaisne, to describe a small genus of bulbs with voluptuous blooms after him. Galtonia eventually included four species, all from eastern South Africa, and including this one, Galtonia candicans. 

Then, in 2004, as has happened a lot since the advent of molecular (DNA) systematics, it was discovered that this cluster of species should be (and indeed must be to reflect most accurately what we know about evolution) embedded within a larger genus. 

In this case that genus was the 160 species strong Ornithogalum, a genus mercifully but rather obscurely meaning 'bird milk'. Perhaps a reference to the egg-shell coloured floral parts (tepals; that is, segments that could be considered either petals or sepals, or perhaps neither). 

Note too, the beautifully green male parts (stamens) in the picture above. Normally you don't see the inside of the flower, and they look more like this.

Before it became part of Ornithogalum, this species was originally and briefly placed in the genus Hyacinthus, a connection maintained today in its common name of Summer Hyacinth. You can see the similarity with the more family blue-flowered garden favourite.

Sometimes the common name is beefed up to Giant Summer Hyacinth, which tells you even more about its habit, and habits. In our Melbourne Gardens, at the height of summer (early January), the large spikes of white flowers stand out strongly against the other brightly coloured flowers of this season.

The species name candicans means white or 'brilliant white', which is a good distinguishing feature in Hyacinthus (others mostly blue and pink flowers) or Galtonia (others mostly yellow or greenish). In Ornithogalum there is plenty of competition from other white or whitish flowered species and carrying the common name Star of Bethlehem (although this fits the colour of the Ornithogalum candicans flowers it doesn't conjure up their bell-like shape).

There are some cultivars around, including 'Moonbeam' which has flowering stems to two rather htan the more typical 1.2 metres high. At about 1.5 to 1.7 metres, our flowering stems are deliciously in-between. All variants are impressive, particularly on mass as planted here. 

The flowers are also said to be fragrant, but not strongly so in my experience. All up, a rather pleasant and likeable plant, which can be grown from divided bulbs or seeds from these pods.