The Best Places to see snowdrops in Cumbria and the Lake District

 

Snowdrop walks in winter are increasingly popular.

Cumbria hosts many wonderful places to see swathes of snowdrops.    Grizedale Forest, Tarn Howes, Grasmere, Sizergh Castle, Dalemain, Dalston or Brockhole, the Lake District National Park's Visitor Centre, all of these places you can visit tomorrow that produce breath taking rewards.

Take a wander through the snowdrops that carpet the woodland walks at Crowdundle Beck, Acorn Bank, Temple Sowerby. 


Snowdrops - the symbol of hope 

The soil is sleeping now.    There is a surge of activity to come.   The first snowdrops are poking their tiny buds above the sodden earth as if to enquire whether it is safe to emerge.

The white bell shaped flowers, with smooth dull, green narrow leaves, are the first sign that spring is on the way.    The snowdrop does not have petals but instead has six white flower segments, known as tepals.    There are two structures three outer, convex in shape, and three inner, that are shorter, and have a small green notch at the top.

Snowdrops do not rely on pollinators to reproduce but will usually be visited by bees and other insects on a warm day.

Part of the national collection for snowdrops is held in Carlisle, Cumbria.    Margaret and David MacLennan have more than 1500 species in their nursery, including species and named varieties.

The scientific name for snowdrops is Galanthus - it means milk flower.   Collectors of snowdrops are known as Galanthophiles. 

The snowdrop is not a native species of the UK.     Many were spread by soldiers returning home from the battlefields of the Crimean War (1853-1856).    

At the time of the Second World War (1939-1945) the military police of the United States of America were known as "Snowdrops".    The name was given by the British people to the soldiers stationed in the UK (prior to the invasion of the Continent) because they wore a white helmet, gloves, gaiters and a brown belt. Uniforms were a dull olive green.

Snowdrop collecting has become popular with some bulbs selling for £600.  Galanthophiles tend to search for snowdrops in old gardens where good collections, mostly from Victorian times, might have hybridised.   They swap bulbs, scour catalogues, barter and divide the more expensive bulbs for distribution amongst other collectors.      



Galanthus elwessii var monostictus cinderdine 


Every day the bud of the snowdrop gets bigger and bigger until finally the flower emerges. 

Snowdrops create new optimism, flowering in defiance against the rudiments of life.    Snowdrops are the harbinger of spring.  A time to start again.




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