Leucojum Gravetye (Giant Snowflakes)

 

I saw these at Waitrose, 3 for £12.  I had never had them before and I had not realised that they were called Leucojum and there were other types with that name. I had focused on the words Gravetye, Giant Snowflake which I thought was a charming name and I thought that maybe they bobbed delicately in graveyards. (I looked it up on wikipaedia and it told me that gravetye giant was also called Leucojum aestivum (aestivum means Summer).  "It is a selected cultivar with larger flowers.  It is named after Gravetye Manor, an Elizabethan Manor house in West Sussex, England."  I did not know where they got Gravetye as part of the name. "Gravetye Manor" was "the home of the influential garden writer William Robinson from 1884 until his death in 1935.  the house is now a hotel." These flowers look tall and slender and add height to a bed. They have dainty bell hat shaped flowers like fairy hats.  White enlivened by a splash of lime nestled into the protruberances of the petals.  I really liked them. I then noticed them in other places as well where I had not seen them before. Maybe they were about before but I had not focused to see them.  When I planted them they were very soon admired by someone who had not spotted them before either.  I suppose that the plant kingdom is so vast that from time to time a discovery is made whilst others are familiar with the plant.