Summer Snowflake

Leucojum aestivum · Garden flowers

Summer snowflake against azaleas

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 20 April 2025

Summer Snowflake against a wall of blurred red azalea, one plant's quiet white against another's loud colour. Each hanging bell has six segments of equal length, tipped with a spot of green - the mark that separates a snowflake from a snowdrop, whose inner segments are shorter than the outer. Despite the name it flowers in April; the "summer" is relative to the Spring Snowflake, which is out in February. A European native of damp meadows, and a plant that does well in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's wetter beds.

Summer snowflake, in bud

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 30 March 2025

A single stem of Summer Snowflake carrying the whole sequence at once: a flower fully open, one just splitting its papery green sheath, and two still-closed buds. Each bell has six white tepals tipped with a green spot, which is the mark that separates a snowflake from a snowdrop - a snowdrop's inner and outer segments are different lengths, a snowflake's are all the same. Despite the name it flowers in April, not summer; the "summer" is relative to the Spring Snowflake, which is out in February.

Summer snowflake

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 30 March 2025

Despite the name, a spring bloomer in most gardens - each petal tipped with a single spot of green rather than a snowdrop's notch, and the flowers noticeably larger than a snowdrop's throughout.

The "summer" is relative to the Spring Snowflake, which flowers in February. A plant of damp European meadows, and one of the few bulbs that will grow with its feet in water.