One Little Snowdrop ...

“Snowdrops: Theirs is a fragile but hearty celebration … in the very teeth of winter.”

              ~ Louise Beebe Wilder

    ~American gardening writer & designer

      whose books are now considered classics 

                     of  their era

                  ~ 1878 ~ 1938

  

One little snowdrop sheens its hopeful beauty in the winter sunshine in this shot I captured February 18, 2023 at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

 

In a winter shorn of snow to this point, this snowdrop still heralds the hope of the coming spring.

 

Snowdrops are hardy perennial, winter-flowering plants that are often heralded as the first sign of spring. They bloom as early as January or February whatever the weather ~ they will even push through frozen, snow-covered ground.

 

Snowdrops are also known as Candlemas Bells, as they were gathered at Candlemas February 2 to decorate churches before the Reformation. They were symbols of purity, which was connected to the rite of purification that Mary observed by going to the temple forty days after Christmas. The festival was formerly known in the Roman Catholic Church as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is now known as the Presentation of the Lord. In the Anglican Church it is called the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. During Candlemas, all of the candles to be used in the church for the coming year are blessed, and the faithful are invited to bring their own candles so that they can be blessed and used in the home for prayer throughout the year.

 

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, named the snowdrop the Galanthus nivalis, “milk flower of the snow,” in 1753.