Williamson's weekly nature notes - Feb 3

FIRST snowdrops here in West Dean woods were already coming out under the snowdrifts in early January. The minute that foot of snow began to vanish by mid month there they were: at least half a dozen white buds - the first of thousands to come this week and next into February.

My photo here shows a typical view of part of the colony.

They used to be called February fairmaids and the name Snow piercer is a good one too because these plants have hardened leaf tips that can pierce frozen ground.

Yet another name is Candlemas bells since the flowers mark that date of February 2. I used to enjoy seeing the huge colonies of snowdrops in the hedgerows around Donhead near Shaftesbury in Dorset when my sister lived there.

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Apparently these can most probably be dated back to the times when the abbey at Shaftesbury was founded by Alfred the Great with his daughter Aethalgiva installed as abbess among the Benedictine nuns.

Candlemas being the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, snowdrops were presumably taken as a potent symbol of purity. One can easily imagine the nuns hunting the wildscape for plants and replanting within the abbey grounds.

But were they finding really wild snowdrops or were they doing what others had been doing for years possibly back to Roman times, that is, just continuing the movement of Mediterranean stock around the landscape. Botanists are not really sure.

There are eight species of truly wild snowdrops or rather Galanthus, members of the Amaryllidaceae which includes the daffodils. All except our possibly native snowdrop are confined to the eastern Mediterranean. Ours has been bred and hybridized to what are now scores of variants.

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Colonies probably begun by members of the church in particular are now established in all parts of the countryside and we all have our favourites. One of mine is at Damerham churchyard in Hampshire.

There is another in Wiltshire at Monkton churchyard. Sussex has 50 different colonies and these are usually on the weald in damp woods. The colony shown in my photograph at my home is on wet clay-with-flints on the dip slope.

It was certainly imported a century ago probably by gamekeepers' wives who once lived here during the shooting heydays associated with Edward the Seventh.

There is a theory that snowdrops at this time were used as path-finders in the dark to the privies of country cottages and the would make sense during winter months.

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These in my photo were actually planted to mark the suicide of a young man 45 years ago. His father planted them to help purify the unfortunate's soul. Our snowdrops spread year by year by seedling and by bulb division. Bees pollinate the flowers on warm days in mid February.