Have you heard of galanthomania? It’s an affliction that can rob people of their money – and, it seems, their senses. They’re so desperate to get hold of some small white stuff that they’ll part with hundreds of pounds at a time – or even resort to theft.
Galanthomaniacs are people who collect snowdrops, often more kindly called galanthophiles. I wrote about this addiction in the magazine recently, but this week the record for the most expensive snowdrop was broken yet again. Someone shelled out £1,390 (plus £4 postage, which seems rather cheap: you’d expect a plant that expensive to turn up with a police escort) on eBay for Galanthus plicatus ‘Golden Fleece’. This tiny little snowdrop might, to someone trudging past it in a wet, cold garden, look like any other snowdrop. But it is in fact the first fully pterugiform (the shape of the flower) snowdrop, and took Joe Sharman 10 years to create.
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