This lovely dwarf was discovered by Mark in the summer of 2001, growing among a crop of E. martinii.

It seemed the most obvious thing to give a name reflective of this fact, so with a simple wordplay, E. 'Mini Martini' was chosen as a name.

However, the plant had to be registered at different agencies in the USA and Europe to secure patenting rights, and as it turned out, they work by different rules.

While the US agency approved the application for E. 'Mini Martini', the European agency returned it stating that names proporting to size were not accepted as it was always possible for a smaller cultivar to be discovered in the future and this name could therefore be misleading.

A new name for Europe had to be found, so the readers of BBC Gardener's World Magazine in the UK were asked for ideas, and from the hundreds of suggestions submitted, Mrs Joy Valance's suggestion, 'Aperitif' was chosen.

Unfortunately the US patent application had already gone through and couldn't be altered, so here we are with two names for our little plant.