Loddon lily
| Summer snowflake | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Order: | Asparagales |
| Family: | Amaryllidaceae |
| Subfamily: | Amaryllidoideae |
| Genus: | Leucojum |
| Species: | L. aestivum |
| Binomial name | |
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Leucojum aestivum L. |
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| Synonyms | |
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Leucojum aestivum, commonly called summer snowflake or Loddon lily is a plant species widely cultivated as an ornamental. It is native to most of Europe from Spain and Ireland to Ukraine, with the exception of Scandinavia, Russia, Belarus and the Baltic Republics. It is also considered native to Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus. It is naturalized in Denmark, South Australia, New South Wales, Nova Scotia and much of the eastern United States.
Leucojum aestivum is a perennial bulbous plant, generally 35–60 cm tall, but some forms reach 90 cm. Its leaves, which are well developed at the time of flowering, are strap-shaped, 5–20 mm wide, reaching to about the same height as the flowers. The flowering stem (scape) is hollow and has wings with translucent margins. The pendant flowers appear in late spring and are borne in umbels of usually three to five, sometimes as many as seven. The flower stalks (pedicels are of different lengths, 25–70 mm long. The flowers are about 3–4 cm in diameter and have six white tepals, each with a greenish mark just below the tip. The black seeds are 5–7 mm long.
After flowering, the fruits develop flotation chambers but remain attached to the stem. In England, it has been recorded that flooding causes the stems to break and the fruits to be carried downstream and stranded in river debris or on flood-plains. The bulbs can also be transported during heavy floods and deposited on river banks.
Flower bee (Anthophora plumipes) approaching flowers
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Wikipedia