Little Snowflakes!

   Barely mention snow down here in the Deep South and you will stir up a whole flurry of excitement.  Most folks dream of a snowy day and will go so far as to "stock up" on every mentionable item in the store.  Me?  Not so much.  While I love looking at photographs of snow elsewhere, it is not one of those things that I wish upon the Bayou.  I adore a good cold winter (which has been sorely lacking for the past few years) but snow is just a nuisance.  But!  I do fully appreciate snowflakes!

  Summer Snowflakes are tiny white flowers that pop up wherever they please and bring a bit of brightness in the doing.  While other blooms are scarce, the little white and green blooms brighten the gardens, along the paths, in the woods or just about anywhere there is a nice place to grow.  Mom always said they heralded spring and that seems to hold true.

  

  Each tiny, cup-shaped blossom has six petals.  They are snow white with a small dot of green at the tip.  The leaves are thin and strappy.  The stalks can have four or five blossoms at graduated spaces.  The bulbs love to grow in clusters well hidden in nooks and crannies of the garden. The Summer Snowflakes (Leucojum) are often confused with Snowdrops (Galanthus).  There are two ways to distinguish between the two.  Snowflakes have six petals that are the same length and, of course, that dot of green, whereas, Snowdrops have six petals...three long and three short...and no dot of green!

   "Pretty, pretty little Snowflakes...where dost thou bloom?   Hidden in between the cabbages if there is room!"  Yes, one large cluster of the Summer Snowflakes somehow made its way into the vegetable garden and is happily blooming among the cabbages.  I love it!