Galanthus description as "Viola alba" or "Viola bulbosa" using Pliny's translation, and comments that the plant had originated in Italy and had "taken possession" in England "many years past". The genus was formally named "Galanthus" and described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, with the single species, "Galanthus nivalis", which is the type species. Consequently, Linnaeus is granted the botanical authority. In doing so, he distinguished this genus and species from "Leucojum" ("Leucojum bulbosum trifolium minus"), a name by which it had been previously known. In 1763 Adanson began a system of arranging genera in families. Using the synonym "Acrocorion" (also spelt
Luzula nivalis Luzula nivalis Luzula nivalis, commonly known as arctic wood-rush or less commonly as snowy wood-rush (both names are used with or without hyphenation), is a species of perennial rushes endemic to Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Northern Europe in Scandinavia. It was described by Polunin (1940) as one of the most abundant, ubiquitous, and ecologically important of all arctic plants. "Luzula nivalis" is classified under the section "Thyrsanochlamydeae" of the subgenus "Luzula". It belongs to the genus "Luzula" of the rush family Juncaceae. With regards to the etymology of the binomial: the generic name "Luzula" could come from the Italian "lucciola"