One of the first flowers to dare to show its head in January and February, the Snowdrop is one of our best known spring bulbs. A low-growing perennial which is found growing beside streams, on roadsides and in damp woods, this plant is a garden escape which has naturalised in the eastern side of the country. The familiar little flowers have three white outer 'petals' (15-25mm long) - in reality these are sepals - and three white inner petals, each of these having a cleft with a green patch around it. These sweet-scented flowers are borne, solitarily, on leafless stems, nodding below a terminal bract. There are two or three blue-green narrow linear leaves to each bulb. This plant belongs to the family Liliaceae.
My first record of finding Snowdrops in a wild setting was in 1979 at Roundwood, Co Wicklow 1979 and I photographed it in Ballitore, Co Kildare in 2009
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
