As early as the final days of December, dedicated snowdrop hunters across Britain begin to watch the undergrowth in woodlands and gardens for evidence of bulbs starting to break through the icy soil. Such devotees to the herbaceous perennial are known as galanthophiles – they discover new varieties and name hybrids, both cultivated and found in the wild. The delicate bell-shaped flower is perhaps most recognised as the precursor of spring, a sign that the slow move towards a bright and hopeful new year has commenced. The common snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) often grows in small clumps. By late January, snowdrop gardens (there are more than 36 nominated examples across England, Scotland and Ireland) display carpets of the tiny white lanterns spread beneath the bare woodland trees.
Cambridge University Botanic Garden plans its Snowdrop Trails for late January, boasting 44 species and cultivars in various hotspots around the grounds as well as in the Mountain House as part of the Glasshouse Range of flowers and plants. In West Sussex, Wakehurst’s winter garden has a spectacular show of snowdrops popping up in a sea of wild magenta-pink cyclamen flowers. Crocuses in lavender blue and bright-yellow aconites are other common planting companions for the snowdrop.
Some early examples of illustrated snowdrops include an insect or creature. In Master of Claude de France’s Book of Flower Studies (c1510–1515), folio 27 shows the flowers opening up and outwards. The fine iridescent blue on a fly’s back is deftly picked up at the edge of white petals for their clearer definition against the pale parchment surface. Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues’ watercolour composition Snowdrops and Painted Lady Butterfly (c1568) is neatly organised to illustrate three snowdrop flowers on stems without leaves under an open-winged painted lady butterfly. Interestingly, both the butterfly and the innocent snowdrop have long been associated with death, the latter’s only crime being its perfectly natural habit of popping up in graveyards and around tombstones, where its activities stretch to nothing more dangerous than respectfully tilting its head in a symbolic gesture of grief imagined from their starkness in the winter months. In The Virgin and Child ('The Madonna with the Iris'), c1500–1510, from the workshop of Albrecht Dürer, another painted lady butterfly rests on the Virgin’s red robes. Here, a life cycle is represented in one small insect, as the butterfly foretells of the crucifixion of Christ. Snowdrops also appear in the margins of manuscripts such as Bichitr’s wonderful Portrait of Raja Bikramajit (Sundar Das) folio from the Shah Jahan Album.
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In 1777, English artist Mary Delany (1700–1788) created an album of collaged flowers from hand-coloured paper. Galanthus Nivalis, Single snowdrop contrasts a bunch of vibrant snowdrops against a black backdrop, leaving a lasting impression. The effect of the fine tissue paper means the flowers appear raised, gently hovering above the page.
In another compendium of flower portraits, Robert John Thornton’s The Temple of Flora, snowdrops are positioned in the foreground of a snowy winter landscape. They are accompanied by purple and yellow crocuses, the only colour to appear on the plate, apart from a faint flush of pink across the grey sky.
As part of his diary, which eventually became the book Modern Nature, artist and film-maker Derek Jarman vividly recollects encountering the first flowers of the year in his grandmother’s garden.
Wednesday 1 February (1989)
‘Flowers spring up and entwine themselves like bindweed along the footpaths of my childhood. Most loved were the blue stars of wild forget-me-nots that shimmered in the dark Edwardian shrubberies of my grandmother's garden.
Pristine snowdrops spread out in the welcoming sun – a single crocus, purple among its golden companions. Wild columbine with its flowers shaped like vertebrae, and the ominous fritillaria that crouched snakelike in corners… These spring flowers are my first memory, startling discoveries; they shimmered briefly before dying, dividing the enchantment into days and months, like the gong that summoned us to lunch, breaking up my solitude.’
Although the snowdrop appears in the winter months, it continues to flower until spring bulbs join it. The downward gaze of its fragile flowerhead perhaps a gentle reminder of what is yet to emerge from underground.
‘Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise!’
William Wordsworth personifies the flower in his sonnet To a Snowdrop (1819).
‘Snowdrops may not be brought in at all, as they will make the cows' milk watery and affect the colour of the butter.’ So says The Handbook of Folklore by Charlotte Sophia Burne (1913). And yet there are examples of them appearing as cut flowers arranged with others or gathered together in a single small vase. Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Bouquet in a Clay Vase (c1609) is abundant with colourful spring blooms. A single snowdrop hangs pendant-like between roses and tulips illuminated against the dark background. In a similar arrangement by the same artist, held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, a number of snowdrops are pictured alongside the painted lady butterfly and a variety of flowers, including the rarely painted grey-blue-black mourning iris.
Mabel Royds’ colour woodcut on paper, Snowdrops (c1935), shows a lively bunch tumbling over the edge of a round-based blue vase. In contrast to the formality of the other images mentioned above, Royds has attempted to capture the sparkling nature of the flowers and the hopefulness they conjure in a winter landscape.
There are so many tributes in art and literature to this simple bloom that annually hails a return to warmth and life, but surely the coup de grace is to be found in the Royal Collection Trust, where a fine early photographic portrait is inscribed ‘Snowdrop, belonging to Prince Leopold, to whom it was sent, July 1856’. It portrays the prince’s longhaired white cat Snowdrop. Just as in the illustration of a flower specimen, the cat materialises from the darkness of the background illuminated by his own autonomous majesty and grace.
