Issue No. 1

Giant Snowdrops, Common Snowdrops & Double Snowdrops

Hi friends,

I’m back! Last year, I hit pause on Over Here for… reasons. Now, I have a new offering to replace it called The Outside In: A Writer’s Herbarium. It combines amateur botanizing and deep noticing with stories and thinkings. You can expect an issue every full moon.

There’ll be two or three entries per issue about my encounters with different plants. Each entry will be accompanied by a specimen from my herbarium, because I am now a person who has an herbarium (I’ve also taken up birdwatching, but that’s another story).

A herbarium, in case you’re not familiar with the term, is a library of dried plant specimens that are mounted on archival paper with a label affixed by the collector and often a stamp denoting whose collection the specimen belongs to (I had my own stamp made, which was a very me thing to do).

Thanks for having me in you inbox. Let me know what you think!

x Jill

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001| Galanthus elwesii (Giant Snowdrop)

Today, A. came in from the grocery store and said there was something he wanted to show me outside. I’ve scarcely been outside since Boxing Day, except to monitor the hummingbird feeder during the cold snap and once for a drive between snowfalls. I’ve been afraid of slipping on ice. I’m also still recovering from the holidays, which is unfortunate since one normally is expected to recover over the holidays, not from the holidays, but, for me, Christmas comes with the weight of familial estrangements. There’s also Omicron, which meant no guests to share our eggnog and decked out halls with in this new home of ours that we’ve occupied for the last nine months. But that’s not the rotten cherry on top. The rotten cherry on top is that instead of enjoying the fireplace and books and games and special snacks, I spent much of the holidays managing panic attacks that came with the frequency and intensity of hot flashes, only without the heat.

When A. asked me to go outside, I looked out my studio window at all the lovely trees in our generous, fenced-off portion of the property: oaks (two inside the fence, four on the outside but with canopies that reach into the yard), flowering dogwood, medlar, star magnolia, maple, laburnum, and even a fledgling gingko. ‘Those trees are as stripped bare as I am,’ I thought. The trees always look beautiful, but I didn’t, so I hesitated about going outside. Then the voice in my head, the one that speaks out about patriarchy, reminded me that I don’t owe it to anyone to look a certain way. So, I put on my quilted jacket over top of my soft cotton dress that has at least two holes in the fabric and my plaid flannel shirt that is a touch too loud. I completed the outfit with a toque and A’s shoes, the ones he wore to the store—men’s size 13 garden shoes, which he lets me wear because they are the only shoes that fit my feet when they’re inexplicably swollen and cased in thick socks. I’m as self-conscious about the shoes as I am about my cane, but I’m also very fond of the freedom that both give me. Along with remembering about ableism, this almost cancels out my self-consciousness.

A. told me it was “balmy” outside. Never believe a person who is rarely ever cold when they tell you it’s balmy. In my reality, which happened to match the weather forecast, it was chilly, windy, and damp. My whole body was tense as I made my way carefully down the porch steps.

“You only have to get to the other side of the house,” A. said, ever-patient with how slowly I walk. When we got there, I perked up when A. pointed to what he wanted to show me: a nod of snowdrops that had come up between a laurel and a lily of the valley bush, in proximity to a dirty old patch of snow. They looked so bright and crisp in the winter landscape. They also didn’t have to social distance. It looked like a party, which prompted both a pang of envy in me and a loud sigh.

I leaned on my cane and stooped as low as I could to look at the snowdrops. They’re a dainty flower, which made them antithetical to me as I lumbered above them trying to decide if they looked more like teardrop earrings or hanging lanterns. I felt delight looking at them, but the delight was more intellectual than emotional, and I soon wanted to go back inside because of the prohibitive weather, both externally and internally.

On the way back across the property, I thought about how snowdrops are thought of as a herald of spring—signs of hope. I’ve written about the word “hope” before. While hope is an expectation that something good is due to happen, it’s also an acknowledgement that things might actually suck. I appreciate how that acknowledgment works against toxic positivity. Hope meets you where you are. Hope doesn’t tell you that everything can be cured with enough rah-rah-rah. See, the snowdrops may have been ready to emerge, but I’m still wintering.

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002 | Galanthus nivalis (Common Snowdrop)

I haven’t had anything to put in my plant presses since the heath bloomed in December, so I decided this morning that it would be a harvest day. I now know that the first snowdrops that bloomed at the beginning of the month were Galanthus elwesii or giant snowdrops. Now, at the end of the month, there are many drifts of Galanthus nivalis or common snowdrops amidst the flurries of elwesii. These mid-season bloomers are shorter and even daintier and what most people think of when they think of snowdrops.

I’ve learned quite a lot about snowdrops these past few weeks, which is how I knew the new snowdrops are Galanthus nivalis. It started while I was scrolling through the Instagram page of Sarah Ravens, a UK-based gardener, and noticed a post mentioning an episode of her podcast “all about the wonders of snowdrops”. I listened to the episode and learned the word galanthophile, a British term for a lover or collector of snowdrops. Armed with this new word, I went down a rabbit hole, and in a voyeuristic move, ended up joining a 4.6K-strong Facebook group called Snowdrops and Galanthophiles.

As I went around the garden snipping common snowdrops as closely to the slowly warming earth as possible in order to preserve their leaves, I tried to remember all the things I’ve learned about snowdrops and galanthophiles.

First, amongst the 22 species, there is estimated to be 2,500+ cultivars. These varieties are either cross-bred willy-nilly in the wild or propagated by humans. Cultivars vary in shape, height (7cm to 30cm), colour (some have yellow bits and the foliage ranges from glaucous to grass green), and markings. The common snowdrop, for example, has upturned vees that look like tiny hearts on the open end of each of the inner three tepals (petals that aren’t fully divided) that make up the inner skirt of the snowdrop, while the giant snowdrop has a similar marking but also another splotch—like a bigger, sloppier heart—at the base of the inner tepals too, so that the two markings, head to toe, form a kind of “x”. One cultivar, I have read, has markings that look like boxer shorts.

Snowdrops are delicate, but deceptively so. They can pierce through heavy snow and contain anti-freeze proteins that enable them to survive sub-zero weather. During WWII snowdrops were even harvested to make antifreeze for tanks. TANKS! If that isn’t mind-boggling enough, the other amazing thing about snowdrops is that their bulbs contain an alkaloid called galantamine that has mind-affecting properties, as first noted in Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus uses the snowdrop to clear his mind of Circe’s bewitchment. Today, galantamine is in a class of medications called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors that’s used in the management of Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, and other cognitive impairments in over 70 countries.

There have been bidding wars over snowdrop bulbs—not because of their usefulness, but because they are fetishized. Most recently, a single ‘Golden Fleece’ bulb sold on eBay for £1390. Since snowdrops started fetching high prices, enterprising thieves began stealing bulbs, digging them up from gardens in the night, so many galanthophiles in the UK have had to lock their snowdrops in greenhouses. I don’t think we have snowdrop thieves here, but someone did try to break into our neighbour’s car the other night while we were sleeping.

What else? Oh yes, the “peep sticks”. Some galanthophiles use these long sticks with mirrors attached to them to save themselves from having to get down in the dirt for a closer look. Galanthophiles also throw parties. On the snowdrop podcast, the galanthophile being interviewed said that “you have to be absolutely bonkers” to go to a snowdrop gala. That made me Google “snowdrop gala”, anticipating the most outlandish online photos of an event I’d seen since Rolling Stone published photos of the Midwest Fur Fest for people, called “furries”, who engage in roleplay of anthropomorphic characters. I was sadly disappointed. Based on photos of The Norfolk Plant Heritage Snowdrop Gala in 2016, a snowdrop gala is just people in everyday wear attending lectures, buying plants, and snacking on small plates of ham, cheese, and cherry tomatoes.

Heading back into the house with a small basket full of freshly picked snowdrops, it occurred to me that I feel the same way about galanthophiles as I do about furries. While I appreciate the up-levelling of ordinary passion into an excessive and single-minded zeal—and can even get excited about a fluffy tail—I’m not going to show up at a convention in a whole suit.

But I wouldn’t mind my own peep stick.

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003 | Galanthus nivalis, f. pleniflorus ‘Flore Pleno’ (Double Snowdrop)

There has been a rapturous amount of sun lately. I don’t think of myself as someone who gets seasonal affective disorder, yet I know the sun and time in the garden are medicine. Today, I peered at the ground closely because the crocuses are coming up and there are flashes of still furled purple petals. It was while I was looking for these flashes of purple along the front garden wall, near the forsythia that is about to wake for spring, that I spotted an entirely different snowdrop, one that I’ve seen in the Snowdrops and Galtanthophiles Facebook group: ‘Flore Pleno’ or the double snowdrop. It’s also from the species nivalis, but it has more than twice the tepals. The outer tepals have a slightly dishevelled appearance and the inner tepals form a rosette with artistic green markings. Plus, they’re supposed to smell like honey. As I huffed the one I picked (delicious), I explained to A. what I had found and my voice was high with excitement.

I’d been hoping to find a snowdrop with an interesting name. For weeks now, I’ve enjoyed learning the names of cultivars. Some names sound wholesome like ‘Basset Hound’ and ‘Cider with Rosie’, while ‘Blewbury Tart’ is clearly a snowdrop that’s ready to show you all her markings. Then there are the punk-sounding names like ‘Wet Wasps’ and ‘Daphne’s Scissors’, and the names influenced by pop culture, like ‘Puff Daddy’ and ‘White Walker’. I’m most amused though by the ones that sound like they could form the cast of a BritBox show, for instance, ‘Lord Kitchener’, ‘Mrs. Tiggywinkle’, and ‘Mrs. Thompson’, who I imagine to be playing the parts, respectively, of the widower, the dead wife’s Pekingese, and the housekeeper.

I just looked it up and ‘Flore Pleno’ is Latin for “with a full flower”, which is a phrase that made me shudder the same way the word “moist” makes me shudder. Why? I guess because “with a full flower” sounds like what would’ve once been used as a descriptor for a female who hadn’t yet been “deflowered”. Isn’t it sad and oogy that I even had that thought? Maybe I was primed for it because I saw this Tweet the other day that made me chortle with glee:

“i refuse to ever teach my daughters the archaic concept of “losing one’s virginity” as if some baby-dicked boy who drives a Honda Civic is really taking something special from you lmaaaoo grow up and overthrow the government”

@tigersgoroooar

I know I was talking about double snowdrops and now I’m talking about false societal constructs, but I’m going to go with it. In fact, I’ve been reminded of something else that has been bugging me. I’ve read a lot of references to snowdrops being representative of “innocence” and “purity” because of their whiteness. Whiteness doesn’t just problematically represent “virginity”. In western cultures, the colour white is also connotative of the qualities of innocence and purity—of goodness—as part of a white/black dichotomy that plays into racist ideologies. In a 1971 interview with the BBC, Muhammed Ali pointed out that angel food cake is the white cake and devil’s food is the chocolate cake. At first glance, colour coding may appear innocuous but when black and white are understood as symbols of badness and goodness there is a certain conditioning taking place that can have undesirable effects.

Floriography is the language of flowers. I’d like it if my flowers could speak a language that isn’t harmful.