Galanthus nivalis the snow", referring either to the snow-like flower or the plant's early flowering. The common name snowdrop first appeared in the 1633 edition of John Gerard's "Great Herbal" (in the first edition (1597) he described it as the "Timely flowring Bulbus violet"). The derivation of the name is uncertain, although it may have come from the German word "Schneetropfen", which was a type of earring popular around that time. Other British traditional common names include "February fairmaids", "dingle-dangle", "Candlemas bells", "Mary's tapers" and, in parts of Yorkshire, "snow piercers" (like the French name ""). "Galanthus nivalis" is widely grown in
Chlamydomonas nivalis Chlamydomonas nivalis Chlamydomonas nivalis is a unicellular red-coloured photosynthetic green alga that is found in the snowfields of the alps and polar regions all over the world. They are one of the main algae responsible for causing the phenomenon of watermelon snow, where patches of snow appear red or pink and emit a ripe watermelon odour upon disturbance. The first account of microbial communities that form red snow was made by Aristotle. Researchers have been active in studying this organism for over 100 years. Although "C. nivalis" is closely related to "Chlamydomonas reinhardtii", the environmental conditions each species inhabits are