PlantFiles: Drooping Star-of-Bethlehem, Silver Bells
Ornithogalum nutans

I give Ornithogalum nutans a negative rating because I was so disappointed in the flowers. I planted 50 bulbs, and the flowers were so insignificant that I ripped the bulbs out of the ground and put them in the compost pile. The flowers looked good in catalog pictures, but were much smaller than I expected.

I moved into a house last Fall and these things have come up everywhere the following Spring. They are spread out over at least an acre and I see them in shade and in the sun. In my opinion, this thing is a weed in this environment. It is not easy to dig out either, as the bulbs are very deep.

On my walks in our neighborhood, I have only seen this naturalized on a hill down the street and again on a bank by a small wooden bridge over a stream in May - it hasn't behaved invasively here like its relative, O. umbellatum (Star of Bethlehem). If you can ever catch it blooming on a sunny day in May in the shadows of a wood, its waxy flowers and stalks seem to glow with faint green tints over white petals. Even if it were not so deer resistant, its ghostly aspect should pull at the heart strings of any flower lover. Let's hope local landscapers don't herbicide and cover over these few remaining wild places with landscape cloth & mulch.

Bloomed one year and didn't come back again. Maybe the critters ate it or it got to hot and the bulbs rotted.
Nice shade loving bulb with fragrant flowers held on stems about a foot above the folige. Pretty white flowers with green lines...

This is a plant that lots of people are curious about in my area. It took me a long time to figure out what it was but finally I found out what it was. At first I liked the plant, but in recent years I have been watching it spread in larger and larger clumps, especially in some places along the C and O Canal along the Potomac River near Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Along with the Garlic Mustard and Asiatic Stilt-grass, it seems to be out-competing the nice natives that used to grow in profusion in these areas.