but they can have greater visual impact in a garden setting. Cultivars with yellow markings and ovaries rather than the usual green are also grown, such as 'Wendy's Gold'. Many hybrids have also occurred in cultivation. Awards , the following have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit: Galanthus 'Ailwyn' Galanthus 'Atkinsii' Galanthus 'Bertram Anderson' Galanthus elwesii Galanthus elwesii 'Comet' Galanthus elwesii 'Godfrey Owen' Galanthus elwesii 'Mrs Macnamara' Galanthus elwesii var. monostictus Galanthus 'John Gray' Galanthus 'Lady Beatrix Stanley' Galanthus 'Magnet' Galanthus 'Merlin' Galanthus nivalis Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus 'Flore Pleno' Galanthus nivalis 'Viridapice' Galanthus plicatus Galanthus plicatus 'Augustus' Galanthus plicatus 'Diggory' Galanthus plicatus 'Three Ships' Galanthus reginae-olgae subsp. reginae-olgae Galanthus 'S. Arnott' Galanthus 'Spindlestone Surprise' Galanthus 'Straffan' Galanthus 'Trumps' Galanthus woronowii Propagation Propagation is by offset bulbs, either by careful division of clumps in full growth ("in the green"), or removed when the plants are dormant, immediately after the leaves have withered; or by seeds sown either when ripe, or in spring. Professional growers and keen amateurs also use such methods as "twin-scaling" to increase the stock of choice cultivars quickly. Toxicity Snowdrops contain an active lectin or agglutinin named GNA for Galanthus nivalis agglutinin. Medicinal use In 1983, Andreas Plaitakis and Roger Duvoisin suggested that the mysterious magical herb, moly, that appears in Homer's Odyssey is the snowdrop. One of the active principles present in the snowdrop is the alkaloid galantamine, which, as an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, could have acted as an antidote to Circe's poisons. Further supporting this notion are notes made during the fourth century BC by the Greek scholar Theophrastus who wrote in Historia plantarum that moly was "used as an antidote against poisons" although which specific poisons it was effective against remains unclear. Galantamine (or galanthamine) may be helpful in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, although it is not a cure; the substance also occurs naturally in daffodils and other narcissi. In popular culture Snowdrops figure prominently in art and literature, often as a symbol in poetry of spring, purity, and religion (see Symbols), such as Walter de la Mare's poem The Snowdrop (1929). In this poem, he likened the triple tepals in each whorl ("A triplet of green-pencilled snow") to the Holy Trinity. He used snowdrop imagery several times in his poetry, such as Blow, Northern Wind (1950) – see Box. Another instance is the poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in which