Chionodoxa siehei or Siehe's Glory-of-the-Snow is a bulb

Bulb

A bulb is a short stem with fleshy leaves or leaf bases. The leaves often function as food storage organs during dormancy.A bulb's leaf bases, known as scales, generally do not support leaves, but contain food reserves to enable the plant to survive adverse conditions. At the center of the bulb is...

ous perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 from west Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 flowering in early spring. After flowering, it goes into dormancy

Ephemeral Plant

An ephemeral plant is one marked by short life cycles, usually six to eight weeks. The word ephemeral means transitory or quickly fading. In regards to plants, it refers to several distinct growth strategies...

 until the next spring. It seeds readily to form colonies.

Description

This is the commonest species grown in gardens, where it is often wrongly called C. luciliae

Chionodoxa luciliae

Chionodoxa luciliae or Lucile's Glory-of-the-snow is a bulbous perennial from west Turkey flowering in early spring. After flowering, it goes into dormancy until the next spring...

. Some botanists consider C. siehei to be the same species as C. forbesii

Chionodoxa forbesii

Chionodoxa forbesii or Forbes' Glory-of-the-snow is a bulbous perennial from south-west Turkey flowering in early spring. After flowering, it goes into dormancy until the next spring....

, which is then the correct name. The Royal Horticultural Society

Royal Horticultural Society

The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...

 treats them as distinct.

Like all members of the genus Chionodoxa

Chionodoxa

Chionodoxa ' is a small genus of bulbous perennials in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae. The genus is endemic to the eastern Mediterranean region, specifically Crete, Cyprus and Turkey. The blue, white or pink flowers appear early in the year making them valuable garden ornamentals...

, the bases of the stamen

Stamen

The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...

s are flattened and closely clustered in the middle of the flower. In the related genus Scilla

Scilla

Scilla is a genus of about 50 bulb-forming perennial herbs in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae, native to woodlands, subalpine meadows, and seashores throughout Europe and Asia...

, the stamens are not flattened or clustered together. The differences are not considered by some botanists as sufficient to create a separate genus, so they include this species in Scilla.

Each bulb produces two leaves, up to 12 cm long and 2 cm wide, and at most one flowering stem, up to 10.5 cm long. The flowers are produced in a broadly pyramidal raceme

Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

, with up to 12 flowers per stem. The lower ones face outwards, the upper ones face upward. Each flower is up to 3 cm across, with individual tepal

Tepal

Tepals are elements of the perianth, or outer part of a flower, which include the petals or sepals. The term tepal is more often applied specifically when all segments of the perianth are of similar shape and color, or undifferentiated, which is called perigone...

s 1.3 cm long. The base of each tepal is white (as are the stamen filaments), producing a white 'eye'. The outer part of the tepals is violet-blue.

Garden use

C. siehei can be bought as dry bulbs (often under the alternative names C. luciliae or C. forbesii) and planted while dormant in late summer or early autumn at a depth of 8–10 cm. It requires light when in growth, but can be grown under deciduous

Deciduous

Deciduous means "falling off at maturity" or "tending to fall off", and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally, and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe...

 trees or shrubs, as the foliage dies down after flowering. It will flower in early to mid Spring. The common blue form of C. siehei seeds freely in many gardens, creating large colonies.

C. siehei was awarded the RHS

Royal Horticultural Society

The Royal Horticultural Society was founded in 1804 in London, England as the Horticultural Society of London, and gained its present name in a Royal Charter granted in 1861 by Prince Albert...

 Award of Garden Merit

Award of Garden Merit

The Award of Garden Merit, or AGM, is an award made to garden plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society after a period of assessment by the appropriate committees of the Society...

 (H4 – hardy outdoors throughout the British Isles) in 1993, which was re-confirmed in 2004. The variety alba has white flowers, and the cultivar

Cultivar

A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...

'Pink Giant' has pink flowers with white centres.