Revealed – the darker side of snowdrops

Feb 1 2008 by Sally Williams, Western Mail

Revealed – the darker side of snowdrops

TO MOST of us it is the white, delicate harbinger of spring.

But now a Welsh expert has revealed the snowdrop’s dark side. Kristina Patmore, a horticulturist at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, is working on a botanic stock-take of the garden’s 46 varieties.

Her conclusion? They can be “unreliable, unpredictable and promiscuous”.

Many superstitions surround snowdrops including the belief that bringing a specimen indoors will trigger the death of a member of the household because the flower resembles a death shroud.

“There is no doubt that they are pretty and delicate but they have a different, darker side, too,” Ms Patmore said.

“You have to grow the different varieties separately as they interbreed at will.

“So you have to keep a close eye on what they are up to, which is one of the reasons why we are carrying out this stock-take.”

She had been warned that there is a big underground trade in unusual snowdrops, she said. But one major benefit of the popular Galanthus, the botanical name for snowdrop, is that the extract Galanthamine is being used as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s.

And Ms Patmore is looking forward to charting the progress of the unusual snowdrops – with very noticeable yellow to green markings on their outer petals – blooming in Garden’s Japanese garden because they may be a new variety.

A mile of snowdrops now embraces the necklace of lakes at the garden at Llanarthne in Carmarthenshire.