Against the Odds: Snowdrops

Today's new blog series Against the Odds was inspired by the reaction to my recent Wordless Wednesday post Tenacity Required. Jane Powers remarked she loves seeing 'all those roof and wall opportunists' and I realised I've been subconsciously collecting (and sometimes blogging) pictures of them for quite a while.

Today's picture is from Painswick Rococo garden which Helen*, Victoria and I visited last week. The snowdrops there are on top form at the moment, so it's well worth a visit if you're in the area. We were all intrigued how the pictured snowdrops had managed to self seed themselves (I'm assuming this is the case) into a wall several feet below their more conventionally growing cousins.

There's also been some very good news involving snowdrops reported recently. Research shows galanthine extracted from two snowdrops species (G. caucasicus and G. woronowii) can help to improve the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Now that's one snowdrop story I'm sure everyone is happy to see at any time of the year :)

* = You can read Helen's post about our visit here, as well as my post about a previous visit to Painswick in the snow. In contrast to today's tiny snapshot on this post, both give a grand tour of the garden, its history and gazillions of snowdrops

Update: Esther has written a delightful post with a wonderful picture of her Scruffiest Snowdrop :)