Snowdrops may look like dainty plants, but they are resilient, flowering during sub-zero temperatures in the deepest of winter. The timing of their flowers is one of the reasons we love them, but they also have a purity, signify hope and perhaps connect with our subconscious feeling that we have made it through another year, and spring may not be that far away. The botanical name for snowdrops is galanthus (a Roman-Greek phrase meaning “milk flower of the snow”) and, although widespread in UK gardens, they are not native, originally coming from southern Europe and Turkey. The common snowdrop is Galanthus nivalis, while the double, more showy flowers are Galanthus elwesii ‘Flore Pleno’, with countless hybrids of both available. They may all look very similar…

Source: The Times January 18, 2020 00:05 UTC