A new variety of snowdrop has sold for £1,850 in an eBay auction.
The bulb, which is known as Galanthus plicatus or Golden Tears, was created by the plantsman Joe Sharman, the MailOnline reported.
Sharman, the owner of Cambridgeshire-based Monksilver Nursery and known as Mr Snowdrop, previously sold a snowdrop bulb called Golden Fleece – which took 18 years to develop – for £1,390.
The auction site’s listing, which shows the Golden Tears bulb sold for £1,850 after 55 bids, describes the flower as “exceptionally vigorous”.
Sharman wrote: “A narrow-flowered yellow pterugiform with a very large mark and bright yellow ovary. Very beautiful and distinct. Quite different from Golden Fleece. Exceptionally vigorous. 25cm.
“The result of a deliberate cross by me using the same parents that created Golden Fleece. Only one for the season.”
Sharman, who lectures on various topics including snowdrops but also autumn flowers of the Peloponnese and spring flowers of Turkey, says this is his 15th season of selling rare snowdrops on eBay and he has been growing and breeding snowdrops for 35 years.
The buyer is unidentified but is likely to be a galanthophile – a collector and identifier of snowdrop species.
Describing his love for snowdrops in an interview with the Guardian in 2015, Sharman said: “They come up early in the year when nothing else is growing, so if you have the kind of brain that needs lots of things to think about, you focus in.
“They seem to be almost infinitely variable. You collect the 10 you recognise, then you realise that you can recognise 20 and it just goes from there. I don’t think there is another group of plants quite like it.”
