Galanthus and water if disturbed by floods. Some snowdrop species are threatened in their wild habitats, due to habitat destruction, illegal collecting and climate change. In most countries collecting bulbs from the wild is now illegal. Under CITES regulations, international trade in any quantity of "Galanthus", whether bulbs, live plants, or even dead ones, is illegal without a CITES permit. This applies to hybrids and named cultivars, as well as species. CITES lists all species but allows a limited trade in wild-collected bulbs of just three species ("G. nivalis", "G. elwesii", and "G. woronowii") from Turkey and Georgia (see Horticulture). A
Galanthus nivalis (flowering stalk), which bears at the top a pair of bract-like spathe valves joined by a papery membrane. From between them emerges a solitary, pendulous, bell-shaped white flower, held on a slender pedicel. The flower consists of six tepals, also referred to as segments. The outer three are larger and more convex than the inner ones. The inner flower segments are usually marked on their outer surface with a green or greenish-yellow V- or U-shaped mark (sometimes described as "bridge-shaped") over the small sinus (notch) at the tip of each tepal. The inner surface has a faint green mark covering