One nodding white flower per stem: three long plain outer tepals and three short notched inner ones marked with a green upturned V
Snowdrop — Galanthus nivalis.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Snowdrop
Flowers January to March
Galanthus nivalis — Amaryllidaceae
The common snowdrop is the small white bulb that flowers through frost and snow, often in great drifts around churchyards, old estates and damp woodland. Despite its place in the British midwinter it is not a native plant: it was grown in gardens by the sixteenth century but was not recorded growing wild here until the late eighteenth. An alkaloid from its bulbs, galantamine, is used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
How to spot them
- ▸A single nodding white flower per stem, with six tepals: three long outer, three short inner
- ▸Each inner tepal carries a green, upturned V or bridge-shaped mark at its notched tip
- ▸Only two or three narrow grey-green basal leaves; 7–15 cm tall in flower
- ▸Flowers in the depths of winter, January to March and increasingly in December
- ▸No coloured spots on the outer tepal tips — unlike the snowflakes, Leucojum
How to know it
Not a British native — grown in gardens by Tudor times but not recorded growing wild here until the late 18th century
Snowdrop.
Its genus name means 'milk flower' and its specific epithet means 'of the snow'
Galanthus nivalis, from Greek gala (milk) and anthos (flower), plus Latin nivalis.
An alkaloid from this bulb, galantamine, is licensed as a cholinesterase inhibitor for Alzheimer's disease
Snowdrop.
Called the Candlemas bell, because the drifts are out around 2 February
Snowdrop — a single bloom brought indoors was once thought an omen of death.
Collecting the hundreds of named cultivars of this one small winter genus is known as galanthophilia
Snowdrop — a galanthophile is a snowdrop obsessive.
Its flowers have no true petals or sepals, only six tepals, and its bulbs are poisonous if eaten
Snowdrop.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Amaryllidaceae, with daffodils and onions; about twenty species of Galanthus, centred on the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus
- •The Woodland Trust says snowdrops were not recorded in the wild in Britain until the late 18th century, though they may have been cultivated by the 16th
- •Galantamine, first obtained from Galanthus and related bulbs, is licensed for mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease
- •Bulbs and leaves are poisonous; the plant was nonetheless used traditionally against headaches and pain
- •The whole genus Galanthus is listed on CITES Appendix II, controlling international trade in wild-collected bulbs
- •Folklore made one flower alone unlucky indoors, but the drift outdoors a symbol of hope and the end of winter
- •The green markings on the inner tepals separate snowdrops from the spring and summer snowflakes (Leucojum), whose six tepals are all the same length
- •Snowdrops spread mainly by bulb division; the seeds carry an oil-rich appendage and are dispersed by ants
Drill it — 8 cards
1 / 8new card
Sources
- Woodland Trust — Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis)