Jan van den top has over 600 varieties of Hosta at his nursery, many of which are used for breeding. He also keeps a number of unstable varieties solely for this purpose, as they add a certain randomness to the gene pool.

A selection of about 200 unstable plants and mutations had been set aside for observation including a number of plants derived from ‘June’ and ‘Devon Green’.

'June Fever'

So when a solitary plant with a striking resemblance to ‘June’ shone out of the crowd, he couldn’t help but think it to be a mutation of the distinctive variety. Jan’s good friend and fellow Hosta expert Danny van Eechert was called in for a second opinion, and Danny confirmed this obvious assumption and proposed the name ‘June Fever’.

Trays full of young plants of 'June Fever', guarded by Mark van Kesteren's dog, 'Spike'.

However, there was to be a twist in the tale. As mass propagation was carried out to produce the thousands of plants needed for sale around the world, as is the normal occurrence, a few of the plants reverted.

But they didn’t revert to ‘June’ as expected. The reverted plants appeared to be ‘Devon Green’!

By this time the name ‘June Fever’ had already been accepted by the plant registering authorities, so too late to go back and change it!

It cannot be proven 100% what the exact parentage of 'June Fever' is, but for now, Jan - and Danny - believe that it is in fact a mutation of 'Devon Green'.

In many ways this makes more sense, as 'June Fever' certainly didn't inherit its glossiness from 'June', whereas 'Devon Green' is known for its shiny foliage.

The debate continues...What do you think?