FEBRUARY has been a damp month but as we move into March the first glimmers of spring have started to appear. One of the most stunning has to be the blast of pale white blooms of the snowdrops in the wet woods of Hurcott.

We often consider the snowdrop to be a quite essentially English plant and are proud to celebrate its early spring blooms in our woodlands but the snowdrop is not a native of the uk. It was brought here from the woodlands that surround the Black and Adriatic Seas in South East Europe back in the 16th century.

Snowdrops growing wild in Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia are now rare threatened species. When the winter Olympics were destined for Sochi there were lots of concerns that the building of the Olympic park would negatively impact on the native snowdrops. However its conservation was enveloped in the Olympic process and the snowdrop became a symbol of the Games.

It has in fact become so threatened in its native range that it is protected by law, making it illegal for snowdrops or their bulbs to pass across international borders without licences and certification.

No one really knows how snowdrops came to England but it would not be hard to imagine that rich estate owners and early plant collectors would have been keen to have snowdrops boldly announcing the spring's arrival in their grounds and gardens.

Like many introduced plants snowdrops have escaped the confines of gardens and flourished in the wild. However unlike more notorious plants like Himalayan balsam the snowdrop causes no harm to our native flora.

These days snowdrops are still much in demand by the more discerning plant collectors, with rare cultivars being avidly collected by enthusiasts. In recent times one particularly rare ornamental bulb was sold to a collector for over £350.

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