I

Stand here on the Riviera at Antibes, and the flower connection begins with a snapdragon: Antirrhinum majus F1, bred specifically as the Antibes I series. If you have ever admired tall, densely packed flower spikes in a garden or a florist's bucket, you have probably met this plant already. It belongs to the old Scrophulariaceae and Plantaginaceae families, and breeders selected it for two things above all: spikes so well filled that each stem carries a dense column of blooms, and a growth habit so uniform that whole rows open together.

What sets this series apart is its appetite for the off-season. It was designed for energy-efficient greenhouse cultivation during the cool, low-light months, so growers sow in late summer or even midwinter and harvest from mid-autumn through to mid-spring, when fresh cut flowers are scarcest. The colours run to soft pink and bright white, and the stems hold their fullness in the vase, which is exactly what florists want for arrangements in the darker months. Commercial growers value the consistent flowering time too, because it lets them plan a steady supply and even pair the series with other lines from the same breeder for production all year round.

The next time you pass a bucket of snapdragons in a winter bouquet, look at the filled spikes and think of greenhouses working quietly through the cold. A flower series carries this Mediterranean city's name out to flower shops across the world, one dense, even spike at a time.