regnum-plantae:

Galanthus nivalis, Amaryllidaceae

While some unexpected bright sunlight melts away the first snow, fallen two days before in Glasgow, the snowdrop makes its sudden appearance, blooming out of the leaf litter. 

This small, bulbous plant is native to much of Europe, including my homeland Italy, where it’s fittingly called bucaneve, ‘snowpiercer’, and naturalised in parts of the US. Here in Scotland, where it was introduced, it’s quite common to see it popping up in parks, where sometimes it forms large white carpets.

Given it was in bloom before half January, this is probably an early-flowering cultivar, as the common snowdrop generally flowers some time later, in February.