Final Flakes?

Galanthus fosteri, a diminutive snowdrop amidst the latest, very shallow snowfall. Will it be the last?

Galanthus nivalis is the best-known and most widespread representative of the genus Galanthus. It is native to a large area of Europe, stretching from the Pyrenees in the west, through France and Germany to Poland in the north, Italy, Bulgaria, Northern Greece, Ukraine, and European Turkey. It has been introduced and is widely naturalised elsewhere. Although it is often thought of as a British native wild flower, or to have been brought to the British Isles by the Romans, it was probably introduced around the early sixteenth century and is currently not a protected species in the UK.

Most other Galanthus species are from the eastern Mediterranean, though several are found in southern Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Galanthus fosteri comes from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and maybe Israel. Rarely grown in UK gardens, the clone I have is surprisingly vigorous in a pot under glass, with a warm dry summer rest, something that is anathema to the common varieties. Now I am trying outside.