As Winter Turns to Spring

As Winter turns to Spring.

Now — now, as low I stooped, thought I,

I will see what this snowdrop is;

As winters dark aura covers the land the humble snowdrop defies its icy grip and emerges to give us hope that Spring cannot be denied and will soon banish the cold. 

So shall I put much argument by,

And solve a lifetime's mysteries.

A northern wind had frozen the grass;

This tiny delicate flower must be the toughest tenacious and hardiest of our garden flowers. Pushing its slender leaves through the hardest of frost bitten soils in the first two months of every new year. It raises our spirits and we are glad to see those pale green shoots topped by a shy white bowing flower head.  

Its blades were hoar with crystal rime,

Aglint like light-dissecting glass

At beam of morning prime.

Snowdrops were first described by the classical Greek author Theophrastus in the fourth century BC.

Rembert Dodoens, a Flemish botanist described and illustrated it in 1583 as did Gerard the herbalist in 1597. The genus was formally named by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. He described it as a single species Galanthus Nivalis. Other well known botanists have contributed to the knowledge of the species and there are around 20variations of the galanthus specious. The most common and the most prolific are the Galanthus Nivalis.

Its angled, slender, cold, dark stem,

Whence dangled an inverted cup

For tri-leaved diadem.

Beneath these ice-pure sepals lay

So well beloved are these delightful little blooms that there are dedicated Snowdrop walks in big estates across the country. Its small white scaleless bulbs escape the most ruthless of garden clearances and pop up in the most unexpected places the following spring.  

A triplet of green-pencilled snow,

Which in the chill-aired gloom of day

Stirred softly to and fro.

Mind fixed, but else made vacant, I,

Lost to my body, called my soul

To don that frail solemnity,

They are the easiest of flowers to spread around the garden. Just dig up a clump when the leaves are still green but the flowers have faded. Divide it and replant small clumps where ever you want to see these special little flowers.

Its inmost self my goal.

And though in vain — no mortal mind

Across that threshold yet hath fared! —

In this collusion I divined

Some consciousness we shared.

Strange roads — while suns, a myriad, set —

Had led us through infinity;

And where they crossed, there then had met

Not two of us, but three.

                                                                                          Walter de la Mare