Snowdrops

Fair maids of February

Why don't you come out today?

Fair maids of February

Why don't you come out to play?

Oh, we've seen you, oh, we've seen you

Even when the icy winds did blow

From the darkness of winter, the first flowers to venture

And now you're lying beneath the snow

Popular song. Robin Dransfield

Our flowers never really stop flowering. If you look hard enough, there is usually something to see throughout the winter. This time of year (late January) there will be some stragglers hanging on from the previous autumn, a few that keep going all year and a few that start early.
Just now, in late January, we are just seeing some of the first heralds of Spring. Of these, perhaps the most special is the snowdrop or Galanthus nivalis.  It is one of the first arrivals which can even force its way through the frozen ground. It is also one of the easiest flowers to recognise because it 'does what it says on the tin'. The flowers are white like snow and the flowers in the unopened state can be seen to hang down (dependent) in a drop shape. Even the Latin name makes some kind of sense; Galanthus meaning milky flower and nivalis snow. I wish it was always that easy.

Left. Snowdrops pushing their way up through the frozen ground. Right. cutaway showing the androecium (male parts)  contained within the inner whorl of tepals. The inferior ovary is shown below the receptacle from which the tepals take their origin.

Although I have included snowdrops in a blog about wildflowers they are strictly speaking an introduced species that has become naturalised in woods and damp places. There are no records of Snowdrops growing in the wild before 1770 and it seems likely that those that are found in the wild are descendants of garden escapees. Steve Nichols, in his excellent book Fowers of the Field,  describes how even now as you walk along the River Tees, the further you progress from hamlets and cottages 'the fewer snowdrops grace the banks' And this is in a location from which some of the first descriptions of Snowdrops growing in the wild were made by James Edward Smith in Flora Britanica published in 1804.

The snowdrop arises from bulbs in the ground. Each bulb sends up a single stalk, two leaves and a single dependent flower. Every year the parent bulb throws off tiny bulbils that grow to the size of the parent bulb. This means that within a few years we end up with a tight cluster of bulbs with almost no space between them and correspondingly above the ground snowdrops occur in tight clusters. It may propagate this way because of the difficulty of relying upon a single flower to become pollinated and set seed so early in the year. 

The snowdrop flower is built in threes. The petals (strictly speaking tepals) are in two whorls of three. The three outer petals are about twice the length of the inner petals. The inner petals are characterised by a notch and on the outer surface, there is a V-shaped splash of green and on the inner surface green stripes visible only when the flower open in warmer conditions. Six pollen-bearing stamens are visible when the flower buds are open. Each stamen has a short filament and an orange coloured anther. The ovary is not directly visible because it lies below the receptacle into which the tepals and stamens insert. A so-called inferior ovary.
If you like formulae this can be represented as P3+3 A3+3 Ĝ3 
Where P= perianth (petals and sepals) A= androecium ie male parts or stamens and G= gynoecium or female parts the line over the G means that the ovary is inferior.

That said, don't worry too much about the details just get out and enjoy the snowdrops while they are there to enjoy.
There are in fact many different kinds of naturalised snowdrops and galanthophiles can obsess over them. A detailed account is outside the range of this blog but a good place to start is the Spring Snowdrop Identification Guide that you can find on the BSBI website. The only snowdrop I seem to find in the park other than Galanthus nivalis is the double-flowered variety G. nivalis Flore pleno see pictures below. This is only found in one part of the park surrounded by 'normal' snowdrops so it might take a bit of finding. Good luck searching for it.

Snowdrop flower showing three outer tepals splayed outwards and three inner tepals with a characteristic splash of green on the outside

Snowdrop flower from below showing green stripes on the inside of the inner whorl of three tepals and yellowish anthers just visible

Double Snowdrops G nivalis Flore pleno. See if you can find them in the park.

Snowdrops in characteristic clumps alongside a footpath in Leazes Park

Taxonomy

Snowdrops belong to the monocotyledons (abbreviated to monocots). This grouping that is comprised of a number of families is named after its one leaved seedlings. The other characteristics are leaves with parallel veins and flower parts in threes or multiples of three; three sepals and three petals, or six tepals. The two whorls of 3 tepals of Snowdrops conform to this pattern

Within the monocotyledons snowdrops used to be placed in a large 'catch-all' family, the Liliaceae. Now in response to molecular genetic data and other factors Snowdrops have been placed in the same family as Daffodil, the Amaryllidaceae.

Postscript

It is easy to abandon interest in flowering plants when the flowers begin to wilt or disappear. However, snowdrops still have things to show us and they repay continued interest on regular walks in the park. Although snowdrops reproduce vegetatively by throwing off new bulbils they can also set seed. After flowering, the stems droop down until the seed pods touch the soil where they continue to develop. Then, the key to the snowdrops dissemination is the foraging ant. The seeds have an elaiosome at one end which is a hook-shaped structure that contains protein and fats. The ants take the seeds down into their nests and in the process spread them more widely and into the soil.

Snowdrop stems droop and the seed pods come to rest on the ground.