02 February 2011

A single snowdrop bulb has sold for £357

North London Today provides these details:
The flower, named EA Bowles after the horticulturalist Edward Augustus Bowles who used to own Myddleton House, has had gardeners scrambling to buy it because its six petals are all exactly the same length and are pure white on both sides...

Andrew Turvey, Myddleton House head gardener, said: “We have a number of
snowdrops and this one grew through natural cross-pollination. It has taken us to this point to get a saleable bulb. One was produced in 2008 that sold for £265, then we managed to produce 19 this year...
The Telegraph offers some context:
The lust for snowdrops, however, speaks to something rather more obsessive. Soldiers returning from the Crimean war brought home the first G plicatus, and the Victorians rapidly fell in love, seeing them as emblems of purity. The first snowdrop conference was held in 1891, the forerunner of an annual gala...

Joe Sharman, who sold the £357 “E. A. Bowles”, dates it to 2008, when a single bulb of Galanthus “Flocon de Neige” made £265 at auction. (It’s a double version of the ordinary snowdrop that grows wild in woods and churchyards – such variants can crop up anywhere, but you need to be tremendously knowledgeable to spot them.)

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