The first snowdrops in the snow

How cheer-bringing this is. And awe-inspiring - every year I wonder how these tiny little flowers have decided that the coldest, grimmest times are the times for them. So I checked my trusty Englishman’s Flora by Geoffrey Grigson (you can see from its state that I’ve referred to it over a lifetime - anyone else have a book like this?) and this is what he has to say:

On snowdrops:

”Again, one of the plants which may or may not be native, and which grew in Elizabethan gardens, the Leucoium Bulbosum praecox or 'Timely flowring Bulbus violet' of Gerard's Herbal.

Snowdrop does not seem to have been a common word until the end of the seventeenth century. In 1659, in his Garden Book, Sir Thomas Hanmer still talks of 'Bulbous Violets', of which Galanthus nivalis is 'the EARLY WHITE, whose pretty pure white bellflowers are tipt with a fine greene, and hang downe their heads'.

It looks as if 'Snowdrop' had been borrowed from the German Schneetropfen (cf. Swedish snödroppe), though the usual German name is Schneeglöckchen, 'snow bell'. Snowdrops were Candlemas Bells, since they blossom in February: Candlemas, the Feast of the Purification, in February; they were Death's Flower, since in several counties - Shropshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Worcestershire, and Sussex among them.

Local name for snowdrops:

CANDLEMAS BELLS (cf. Flemish lichtmisbloem), Wiltshire , Gloucestershire; DEATH'S FLOWER, DEWDROPS, DINGLE BELL, DROOPING BELL, DROOPING HEADS, DROOPING LILY, EVE'S TEARS, Somerset ; FAIR MAIDS, Hampshire , Norfolk; FAIR MAIDS OF FEBRUARY, Somerset; FEBRUARY FAIR MAIDS, Somerset, Westmorland. NAKED MAIDENS (cf. Dutch naakte wüfjes, German Nackte Fungfrau), PIERCE-SNOW, SNOW-PIERCER (cf. French perce-neige), SNOWBELLS (cf.German Schneeglöckchen), Somerset; SNOWDROPPERS, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire; WHITE BELLS, WHITE QUEEN, Somerset.”