Snowflakes – not Snowdrops!

While much of the country is still under a blanket of real snow, my Georgia backyard is blanketed with a different kind of snowflake. Bulbs, planted years ago by an unknown but much appreciated gardener, have now spread prolifically under my favorite maple tree.

I had always thought they were called ‘Snowdrops’ but a quick visit to the Internet convinced me that my flowers were not Galanthus, or common Snowdrops, which has only a single flower per stem. Definitely not the case here. A bit more digging, so to speak, convinced me that my plant must be SnowFLAKE, not snowdrop, genus name Leucojum.

Since my flowers bloom in late winter and early spring, of course I thought they were the spring blooming species, ‘vernum.’ But MY flowers occur 5 – 6 per stem, not one or two.

At this point you may be saying, oh what difference does it make? But by now, I had dug in my heels and was determined to figure it out.

Comparing more photographs, I realized that my flowers looked more like a different species – L. aestivum. But wait! ‘aestivum’ means relating to summer and the plant descriptions indicated that these bulbs bloomed in summer, not early spring.

Argh. But a little more research convinced me that indeed, my flowering bulbs have to be Leucojum aestivum, even though they are blooming earlier than the description indicates. There are possible reasons for this – global warming and a changing climate, a protected spot, a more southern climate, a well established root system??

To finish out the mornings’ slightly obsessive search for identification, I further determined that my bulbs must be the cultivar, ‘Gravetye Giant,’ named after a manor house in West Sussex.

I know full well that it doesn’t make a bit of difference but I’m grateful for a life in which I can spend a couple of hours in idle pursuit of an intellectual curiosity. In my research, I read that this is native to Ukraine. I know that people there have neither time nor energy right now to notice if these – or any flowers – are blooming this spring, It is my fervent prayer that soon, very soon, life will become easier again and that the Ukrainians can once again appreciate something as simple as a wild Snowflake. Heartfelt prayers for all Ukranians.