"Snowdrop seed has an appendage called an elaiosome; a small body rich in fatty acids and other things attractive to ants. In the wild ants probably visit the ripening pods; carrying off the elaiosomes and discarding the unwanted seed somewhere en route to their nest. You are not the only being, therefore, interested in the ripe snowdrop seed in your garden. As the capsule ripens and swells, the weight bends the supporting stalk until the capsule is resting on the ground. I have often gone for ripe seed, only to find the yellowing capsule on the ground with a circular hole in the side and the seed gone - ants or slugs or both, I assume." Well, not "probably visit the ripening pods", but "definitely visit", since seed dispersal is dependent upon ants. Process is called myrmecochory. Ants have been responsible for sowing snowdrop seeds here (not from the expensive ones, though). About twenty-five years ago I received a few tubers of Cyclamen coum from the late Nina Lambert in New York, and now there are hundreds of C. coum in the garden here. Ants have also propagated C. cilicium and mirabile, but for some reason have shown no interest in C. hederifolium. The moral here is not to disturb the ants in their work. By the way, I find that cyclamen tubers less than about 2cm transplanted into the garden suffer from frost heaving, where the self-sown ones do not, probably due to the roots properly anchoring the tubers. Bob Nold Denver, Colorado USA