Hello Steemians,
One of my favourite flowers of spring(they're also the first!) are the brave and beautiful snowdrops that boldly peek through the snow..
Even when we feel certain that the winter has not quite gone away, those fearless little beauties poke their heads out of the frozen earth to prove us wrong..
Snowdrops
Galanthus (snowdrop; Greek gála "milk", ánthos "flower") is a small genus of about 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single small white drooping bell shaped flower with six petal-like (petaloid) tepals in two circles (whorls). The smaller inner petals have green markings.
Most species flower in winter, before the vernal equinox (20 or 21 March in the Northern Hemisphere), but some flower in early spring and late autumn. Snowdrops are sometimes confused with the two related genera within the tribe Galantheae, snowflakes Leucojum and Acis.
All species of Galanthus are perennial petaloid herbaceous bulbous (growing from bulbs) monocot plants. The genus is characterised by the presence of two leaves, pendulous white flowers with six free perianth segments in two whorls. The inner whorl is smaller than the outer whorl and has green markings.
Snowdrops have been known since the earliest times under various names but were named Galanthus in 1753. As the number of recognised species increased various attempts were made to divide the species into subgroups, usually on the basis of the pattern of the emerging leaves (vernation). In the era of molecular phylogenetics this characteristic has been shown to be unreliable and now seven moleculary defined clades are recognised corresponding to the biogeographical distribution of species. New species continue to be discovered.
The leaves are basal, emerging from the bulb initially enclosed in a tubular membranous sheath of cataphylls. These are generally two (sometimes three) and linear, strap-shaped or oblanceolate. Vernation, the arrangement of the emerging leaves relative to each other, varies between species. These may be applanate (flat), supervolute (conduplicate) or explicative (pleated). In applanate vernation the two leaf blades are pressed flat to each other within the bud and as they emerge; explicative leaves are also pressed flat against each other, but the edges of the leaves are folded back (externally recurved) or sometimes rolled; in supervolute plants one leaf is tightly clasped around the other within the bud and generally remains at the point where the leaves emerge from the soil (for illustration, see Stearn and Davis 5. In the past, this feature has been used to distinguish between species and to determine the parentage of hybrids but has been shown to be homoplasious, and not useful in this regard.
The scape bears at the top a pair of bract-like spathe valves usually fused down one side and joined by a papery membrane, appearing monophyllous (single). From between them emerges a solitary (rarely two), pendulous, nodding, bell-shaped white flower, held on a slender pedicel. The flower bears six free perianth segments (tepals) rather than petals, arranged in two whorls of three, the outer whorl being larger and more convex than the inner series. The outer tepals are acute to more or less obtuse, spathulate or oblanceolate to narrowly obovate or linear, shortly clawed and erect spreading. The inner tepals are much shorter (half to two thirds as long), oblong, spathulate or oblanceolate, somewhat unguiculate (claw like) and tapered to the base and erect. These tepals also bear green markings at the base, apex or both that when at the apex are bridge-shaped over the small sinus (notch) at the tip of each tepal, which are emarginate. Occasionally the markings are either green-yellow, yellow or absent, and the shape and size varies by species.
The six stamens are inserted at the base of the perianth, and are very short (shorter than the inner perianth segments), the anthers basifixed (attached at their base) with filaments much shorter than the anthers and dehisce (open) by terminal pores or short slits.
The inferior ovary is three-celled. The style is slender and longer than the anthers, the stigma are minutely capitate. The ovary ripens into a three-celled capsule fruit. This fruit is fleshy, ellipsoid or almost spherical opening by three flaps with seeds that are light brown to white and oblong with a small appendage or tail (elaiosome) containing substances attractive to ants, which distribute the seeds.
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, northern Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, 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 16th century and is currently not a protected species in the UK. 11 It was first recorded as naturalised in the UK in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in 1770. Most other Galanthus species are from the eastern Mediterranean, but several are found in southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Galanthus fosteri comes from Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and maybe Israel.
The genus Galanthus is native to Europe and the Middle East, from the Spanish and French Pyrenees in the west through to the Caucasus and Iran in the east, and south to Sicily, the Peloponnese and the Aegean, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. The northern limit is uncertain because G. nivalis has been widely introduced and cultivated throughout Europe. G. nivalis and some other species valued as ornamentals have become widely naturalized in Europe, North America and other regions. Galanthus grows best in woodland, in acid or alkaline soil, though some are grassland or mountain species.
I hope you have enjoyed this post about the gorgeous snowdrop! Please let me know what you think about this striking little flower! Ciao for now! ♡