Description
Near-white to creamy white though this species is never really ice-white when the flowers are young, they are only properly white at maturity, despite the name. Even the forms which are a really bright white, in the mature bloom, open with just a transient hint of primrose to them, on their first day after breaking their buds. (shown in one of our gallery photographs). Sometimes, rarely, a solitary plant veers to a deeper shade but these never attain a true yellow, they always stop short and mature to a shade closer to white than even the softest yellow.
All of the flowers have greenish tubes and the characteristic violet-brown tinted spathe of the species (albidus). The flowers face more or less sideways to slightly upward.
This is one of the taller forms of the pale hoop-petticoats and it just overtops most of our cantabricus and romieuxii forms.
A lovely variant of the hoop petticoats from north Africa, hardy here in case you are worried, but excellent in a pot. We have it under alpine glass where we enjoy it from mid January onward. It is also perfectly hardy in an appropriate, well-drained sunny situation such as a raised bed. Grown with other species, under the same conditions, we find this is 7-10 days later than the bulk of the others.
