Species
+

Galanthus elwesii Hook.f.

Caucasian Snowdrop, Giant snowdrop, Greater Snowdrop

Climate known 68 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Galanthus elwesii, Elwes's snowdrop or greater snowdrop, is a species of flowering plant in the family Amaryllidaceae, native to the Balkans and Asia Minor, where it is found in the countries of Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Moldova, Ukraine and Turkey.

Text from Wikipedia, “Galanthus elwesii”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Galanthus

Galanthus, or snowdrop, is a small genus of approximately 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single small white drooping bell-shaped flower with six petal-like (petaloid) tepals in two circles (whorls). The smaller inner petals have green markings.

Text from Wikipedia, “Galanthus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Amaryllidaceae
Described by
Hook.f.
Native to
Albania, Bulgaria, Greece +4
Wild records
33 in range· 7 open

At a glance

Warmest month
27°C
Jul, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
651mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Dec 85 mm (CHELSA)
Light
11–45DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Galanthus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to May in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 651 mm a year, wettest December at 85 mm, driest August at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 45 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -9.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Chianthemum elwesii (Hook.f.) Kuntze; Galanthus elewesii Hook.f.; Galanthus graecus Boiss. ex Orph.; Galanthus graecus f. maximus Zahar.; Galanthus graecus var. maximus Hayek.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Galanthus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to May in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (484 mm of 651 mm) takes 8 months, October to May. Mean temperature moves 21.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: April to November.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 651 mm a year, wettest December at 85 mm, driest August at 35 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

651 mm a year at the habitat, 484 mm of it October to May. Wettest month December at 85 mm, driest August at 35 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 508 mm to 1380 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 45 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 11 to 45 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 7, the highest 90th-percentile month 50).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -9.8 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -9.8 °C, the absolute minimum -24.5 °C, about 104 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -6.8 °C to 2.6 °C), warmest day 26.8 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -9.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 53 to 63% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 5 °C in Jan to 27 °C in Jul; mean night from -3 °C in Jan to 17 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 651 mm of rain a year, most in Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 28 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -24.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.1 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-40°-20°20°40°frost36.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)-24.5° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 11–45RH 53–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 28 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C5 / 2–106 / 3–1010 / 7–1315 / 12–1720 / 17–2324 / 21–2727 / 24–3127 / 24–3122 / 20–2717 / 14–2210 / 8–165 / 3–11
Night °C-3 / -7–3-3 / -7–20 / -4–45 / 1–811 / 6–1214 / 10–1717 / 13–2017 / 13–2013 / 9–178 / 4–133 / -1–8-2 / -5–5
Rain mm54 / 32–26256 / 30–18255 / 39–13556 / 41–8554 / 40–7950 / 18–8142 / 9–6335 / 6–5240 / 16–5957 / 37–9967 / 44–22385 / 45–285
DLI13 / 9–1718 / 15–2325 / 22–3134 / 30–3940 / 37–4545 / 39–5044 / 39–5039 / 35–4530 / 25–3720 / 17–2713 / 10–1811 / 7–14
RH %63 / 60–6661 / 59–6459 / 57–6157 / 55–6056 / 53–5955 / 49–5853 / 45–5753 / 46–5856 / 48–5959 / 52–6262 / 56–6463 / 60–66

Each figure is the median across the 28 grid cells holding the 32 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 977:4062 (41.125, 23.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -24.5 °C, 1st-percentile night -9.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.1 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 28 distinct grid cells holding the 32 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 977:4062 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 41.00_23.125, lapse-corrected +471 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 791 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeAlbania, Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, East Aegean Is., Turkey· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Germany, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker40.596, 23.111 · in the densest population, 25 records (76% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 33 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 7 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 95 km away. 1340 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km and stays on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 33 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Galanthus elwesiiGalanthus elwesiiGalanthus elwesiiGalanthus elwesiiGalanthus elwesiiGalanthus elwesiiGalanthus elwesiiGalanthus elwesii

Photographs: (c) Katja Schulz, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Kostas Zontanos, some rights reserved (CC BY) (7).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Galanthus elwesii, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

CYP96T1 of Narcissus sp. aff. pseudonarcissus Catalyzes Formation of the Para-Para' C-C Phenol Couple in the Amaryllidaceae Alkaloids
Matthew B. Kilgore, Megan M. Augustin, Gregory D. May, John Crow (2016) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Phytochemical differentiation of Galanthus nivalis and Galanthus elwesii (Amaryllidaceae): A case study
Strahil Berkov, Jaume Bastida, Boriana Sidjimova, Françesc Viladomat (2008) · Biochemical Systematics and Ecology
Alkaloids of Galanthus elwesii
Anita Latvala (1995) · Phytochemistry
Alkaloid Diversity in Galanthus elwesii and Galanthus nivalis
Strahil Berkov, Jaume Bastida, Boriana Sidjimova, Françesc Viladomat (2011) · Chemistry & Biodiversity
Antiviral Activities in Extracts of Turkish Medicinal Plants
J. B. Hudson, M.K. Lee, Bilge Şener, Nurgün Erdemoğlu (2000) · Pharmaceutical Biology
Revised NMR data for Incartine: an Alkaloid from Galanthus elwesii
Strahil Berkov, Ricardo Reyes‐Chilpa, Carles Codina, Françesc Viladomat (2007) · Molecules
Chromatographic Determination of Phenolic Acids in the Snowdrop by HPLC
Mustafa Tüzen (2003) · DergiPark (Istanbul University)
Three New Alkaloids from Galanthus nivalis and Galanthus elwesii
Strahil Berkov, María Cuadrado, Edison Osorio, Françesc Viladomat (2009) · Planta Medica
Determination of Phenolic Acids in Amaryllidaceae Species by High Performance Liquid Chromatography
Milena Nikolova, Reneta Gevrenova (2005) · Pharmaceutical Biology
Pótlások Magyarország edényes növényfajainak elterjedési atlaszához VIII.
János Csiky, Kornél Baráth, Éva Csikyné Radnai, Judit Deme (2018) · Kitaibelia

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Galanthus 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 40 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.