We’re very excited to welcome author, gardener and Emeritus Professor of Chemical Pathology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, George G. Brownlee for a talk on his 2021 book ‘A Passion for Snowdrops: a personal perspective’.

This talk will also include the latest feature of Professor George G. Brownlee at the Lakeland Horticultural Society Journal, 2022, showing an early hand-coloured image of a snowflake (Leucojum vernum), and a detailed description of the surprising reuse of snowdrop woodcuts in European and English herbals, published 65 years apart spanning the 16th and 17th centuries.

A Q&A will follow with the audience and book copies of ‘A Passion for Snowdrops: a personal perspective’ will be available for sale.

This talk is part of our Chelsea Physic Garden’s 350 anniversary year and part of the Heralding Spring events.

Booking Information:
Tickets are £25 per person

(Concessions: £20 per person)
(Concessions: Students, Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Refugee Status and Asylum Seekers)

This event will take place in our first floor ‘Gallery’, unfortunately this space is not wheelchair accessible. Please email if you would like to discuss accessibility.

Tickets include entry to the Garden. No discounts for members.

The Speaker

George G. Brownlee

George G. Brownlee is Emeritus Professor of Chemical Pathology at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. He is a keen gardener with a passion for snowdrops which he has grown, tended and shown off in his Oxford urban garden for many years. His recent book ‘A passion for snowdrops: a personal perspective’ was published by Whittles Publishing in 2021.

Brownlee describes all 22 presently known snowdrop species, the cultivation of over 100 garden-worthy varieties and importantly how to select and grow a few varieties if space is limiting. Uniquely he writes a chapter on ‘snowdrop art’ illustrating historical images from the earliest known unambiguous snowdrop image in Rembert Dodoens’ herbal of 1568 to more recent images from English herbals and floras. This is a lavishly illustrated book that should appeal to both beginners and galanthophiles.