White magic

Margaret and David MacLennan introduced themselves to the esoteric pursuit of collecting snowdrops just over 15 years ago. They now grow at least 2,000 distinct cultivars of and theirs is the largest systematic and publicly accessible collection in the UK. As a National Collection, it was granted Scientific Status by Plant Heritage a few years ago, in recognition of the MacLennans’ extraordinary rigour in maintaining, expanding and documenting the collection, but also of their generosity in sharing knowledge and plants among other enthusiasts and institutions. David has an impressively easy command of the niceties of form and lineage that distinguish each snowdrop in their collection and photographs them assiduously, while Margaret’s skill as a propagator has been central to the MacLennans’ rapid ascent among galanthophiles. The first