Calendar February 2015: Snowdrop -Fair Maids of February-

February: Snowdrops

(Galanthus nivalis, Fair Maids of February, lily family)

'Fair Maids of February'.  I didn't know such a sweet another name of snowdrop.  I found the name in a book, which was written by an Edwardian naturalist, Edith Holden, in the early 1900's.(The book, 'The Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady', wasn't the original edition (edition in 1977), though.)  She recorded a whole year of the flora and fauna in the countryside in England.  

In a page of February She cited a poem by Hartley Coleridge.  The poem seems to be well-known in the UK.  I didn't know it.  In my town there is a Coleridge Avenue.  But I didn't know it was the name of a poet in the 18 and the 19 Centuries.

Anyway, snowdrop in the poem is a symbol for the beginning of the next season after the dark winter, which brings the liveliness and the brightness onto the dark ground.  What I found interesting is that Edith Holden in the early 1900s as well as Hartley Coleridge in the mid 1800s had shared the same feeling about snowdrops.

After December solstice, I feel it is getting brighter and longer every day.  Here, in south Wales, the winter is mild and wet.

Snowdrop's greyish green leaves sprout from the ground, where they get enough sunlight and are well protected from the cold bitter wind through the winter.  A few snow-white drop-like buds would be appearing at the beginning of February in our garden.  

But this year I found small buds of snowdrops in our garden in the forth week of January.  According to an article of Woodland Trust last year, spring has arrived gradually earlier over the last 25 years.  Hopefully snowdrops will not be 'Fair Maids of January' soon!