Galanthus have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. A list of Irish cultivars can be found here Propagation is by offset bulbs, either by careful division of clumps in full growth ("in the green"), or removed when the plants are dormant, immediately after the leaves have withered; or by seeds sown either when ripe, or in spring. Professional growers and keen amateurs also use such methods as "twin-scaling" to increase the stock of choice cultivars quickly. Snowdrops contain an active lectin or agglutinin named GNA for "Galanthus nivalis" agglutinin. In 1995, Árpád Pusztai genetically modified potatoes with the
Amanita nivalis Amanita nivalis Amanita nivalis, the snow ringless amanita or mountain grisette, is a species of basidomycote fungus in the genus "Amanita". It was first described by the Scottish mycologist Robert Kaye Greville in 1826 from specimens found growing at high altitudes in the Scottish Highlands. He gave it the Latin epithet "nivalis" (of the snow) to indicate the alpine type habitat in which he found it growing rather than to describe its white colour. "Amanita nivalis" is a small species of fungus which is usually white when young but which becomes tinged with grey or buff as it ages. It