Snowdrops arriving two weeks early

need pollinating insects to form seed, but of course the snowdrop blooms when few such insects are around.

So it’s when the little bulbs are washed away and deposited by floods that new colonies tend to occur.

The most extravagant snowdrop display of them all might not be down to Mother Nature at all. The famous flowers that bloom in Exmoor’s Snowdrop Valley probably occur thanks to the Benedictine monks who may, or may not, have generally they do not thrive well in northern Europe.

It is thought they were brought here from southern Europe by Benedictine monks in the 11th century because of their religious symbolism.

Candlemas (February 2) is the feast of purification of the Virgin Mary and in mediaeval times the snowdrop was regarded as a suitably white and pure symbol of the theme.

And they do indeed thrive around monastic sites around the country. Was it thanks to the priory at Dun- ster that Snowdrop Valley may have come into such fantastic floral being?

The monks had trout ponds in the upper part of the Avill Valley and some say it was they who introduced the snowdrops there in the 13th century.

If so, we have a lot to thank them for – Snowdrop Valley should be considered as one of the true Wonders of the West Country.

And it should be a good year for them if the green shoots in my valley – just eight miles away – are anything to go by. Make a date in your diary to go and see the whitest carpets of them all.