The cold weather hasn’t helped bring on spring flowers, but lesser celandines are coming into bloom, especially in southern England. These relatives of buttercups have glossy yellow flowers and heart-shaped leaves, and the flowers also have the uncanny knack of swivelling round to track the sun like little solar energy dishes, trapping the sun’s warmth to entice early insects into the flower; but when skies turn overcast and rain threatens the petals close shut.
Snowdrops are now at their best and most widespread in many damp places, especially in wet woods and on the banks of streams, their drooping white bell flowers nodding and swaying in the wind and smelling sweet of vanilla or honey. They are able to survive the cold of winter and flower so early because they grow from bulbs, and most colonies of snowdrops in Britain reproduce by their bulbs dividing, rather than being pollinated by insects.
They aren’t native to Britain and were only recorded growing in the wild in the 1770s, probably after escaping from gardens. They became fashionable in the mid 19th century and in recent years something of a snowdrop mania has developed with record prices paid for the bulbs.
Snowdrops, and their relatives the daffodils, are also grown for a drug called galantamine, named after Galanthus nivalis, the scientific name for snowdrop. The drug is used for the treatment of early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and works by boosting the levels of a nerve-transmitter involved in sending signals between nerve cells in the brain. Paul Simons
