Tower and Town, February 2024 (view the full edition)SnowdropsI was clearing leaves yesterday and saw some snowdrop stems pushing up through the soggy soil; a promise of a burst of delicate white jewels to come, and a herald that Spring is just around the corner.
Snowdrops rapidly gained popularity in the 19th century and, with the surge of both botany and floral symbolism, became associated with hope and purity. There was, however, a dark superstition associated with it, probably developed from swathes of the bulbs being planted in and around graveyards during the Victorian era. In many areas of the country, the snowdrop became a harbinger of death and impending doom if cut and brought into the home and this superstition persisted well into the 20th century. But for those who weren’t superstitious, just like the tulip-mania of the 17th century but on a somewhat smaller scale, Galanthus bulbs have since the mid-19th century attracted their own fan club. The great horticulturalist and plantsman E A Bowles, an avid galanthus collector, wrote a letter to a fellow enthusiast entitled ‘Dear Galanthophil’ and it’s assumed this is where the word galanthophile originated. In 2011 a single Galanthus plicatus E A Bowles bulb named after the great man himself sold for £357. This may seem pretty steep to us non-Galanthophiles where one snowdrop looks pretty much the same as another, but it’s by no means the highest price paid. In 2015 someone forked out £1,390 for a lone snowdrop bulb off eBay! Happily, you don’t have to spend a fortune to view beautiful snowdrops locally. They grow prolifically in small dense clumps, creating great swathes of white carpet under deciduous woodland and indeed anywhere that can provide them with a bit of dappled shade. Apart from the tremendous display at Welford Park, you can spot prolific clumps in local woodland, and even by the Kennet in Minal (opposite my cottage, as it happens). Deirdre Watson - Marlborough Gardening Association |
The plant is in fact originally a native of mainland Europe, even mentioned in ancient Greek literature. The best known species of the genus is officially called galanthus nivalis: Galanthus from two Greek words meaning ‘milk’ and ‘flower’ and Nivalis from the Latin word for ‘snow’. It is believed to have been introduced to England around the beginning of the 16th century. Mentioned in John Gerard’s General Historie of Plantes printed in 1597, the snowdrop was originally listed as Leucojum bulbosum praecox minus –‘Timely Flouring Bulbous Violet’. It wasn’t until 1753 that the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus reclassified the snowdrop using the Greek/Latin term still used today. The snowdrop was eventually placed in the Amaryllidaceae family in 1805 and remains classified as such to this day.