Jorun's photo of
Ornithogalum sibthorpii reminds me that last week when we were at our house in southern Greece
Ornithogalum prasinantherum was flowering there. This Greek endemic is very similar to the widespread Mediterranean
O. narbonense. It was described as a separate species in 1977, and in 1980 Flora Europaea (vol 5) agreed. However in 1984 the Flora of Turkey did not treat it as a separate species (it is said to occur in the East Aegean islands), and on those grounds Raf Govaerts recorded it as just a synonym in his World Checklist, and therefore also in Kew's new Plant List.
It could be argued that this view has been countered by the detailed study of the plant in Kit Tan's 2001 Endemic Plants of Greece: The Peloponnese, which was not referred to in the Checklist treatment. She treats
O. prasinantherum as a valid species. The differences from
O. narbonense are not exactly monumental, being confined mainly to the shape of the seed capsule, and to the colour of the anthers. Though in both plants the pollen itself is yellow, as its Greek-derived name implies,
O. prasinantherum has green (or greenish-yellow) anthers. You can just about see this in the close-up second picture, below!
