Summer Snowflakes (Leucojcum aestivum). NB they flower in spring, unlike the Spring Snowflake (Leucojum vernum) which flowers in late winter. In his seminal book 'The Wild Garden' the Victorian horticulturalist William Robinson wrote that Snowflakes should be "in any collection of British wildflowers". The ones I planted here are 'Gravetye Giant', descendants of Robinson's selection from the wild which he naturalised around his country estate at Gravetye Manor. 

  Both Snowflakes are native and L. aestivum is found growing by the thousands in the marshy margins of the River Loddon in Berkshire. Indeed one of the common names for this species is Loddon Lilly. [see entry dated 18th. April 2017] 

 Curiously it is prolific here but found almost nowhere else. Is this a particularly suitable habitat that has been lost elsewhere? And yet it is by no means a bog plant. I find that 'Gravetye Giant' grows in a variety of garden soils (including dryish/free draining ones) so why is this adaptable bulb not more widespread in the countryside?

 Mea culpa. I published an entry this time last year identifying these clumps as Spring Snowflakes because I had forgotten which of the two I had planted. I overlooked the fact that L. vernum has only one flower per stem whereas L. aestivum has between three and seven...