Nature Table: Snowdrops

They are not native Irish flowers but are widely naturalised and grow as wild in woods and road verges. 

There are 20 wild species growing across Europe and the Middle East and hundreds of cultivated varieties, some developed here. The common snowdrop grows in upland areas across Europe and is the plant from which many of the cultivated varieties have been developed. It is protected in the wild by international law.

The 20th wild species, Panjutin’s snowdrop, was only discovered in 2012 growing in five small sites quite close together in the Transcaucasus on the border between Russia and Georgia. Shortly afterwards one of the five sites was destroyed by preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Snowdrops are in flower at present and the best way to propagate them is to lift clumps immediately after flowering and divide them into individual bulbs. In 1998 the so-called Pusztai Affair was a controversy about the safety of genetically modified food involving potatoes that had been modified with a snowdrop gene.