Forsythia x intermedia Maree d’Or (‘Courtesoi’)

Although scorned by some because of its ubiquity and its explosion of colour, the popularity of Forsythias resulted in extensive hybridisation since Carl Thunberg, surgeon with the Dutch East India Company, introduced F. suspensa to Holland in 1833, and plant hunter Robert Fortune introduced F. viridissima from China for the Veitch nurseries in Exeter. F. x intermedia Maree d’Or  is one of those hybrids but differs from most having been specifically designed by Alain Cadic in 1990 at the French National Institute of Agricultural Research in Angers, to be a compact, ground-covering form, suitable for use in smaller gardens, and it has received the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.  It is growing in SBG’s AGM garden in the bed towards the top, backing on to the nursery and as March begins the buds are ready to burst into the clear yellow 4-lobed flowers, smothering the arching branches before the leaves..

The name Maree d’Or,  meaning Golden Tide,  is a trade name. ‘Courtesol’ is the cultivar name.  The genus (of 11 species in the olive, Oleaceae, family) was named in honour of Scottish botanist William Forsyth, curator of Chelsea Physic Garden and a founder of the Royal Horticultural Society.  (He was also a forebear of the entertainer, Bruce Forsyth!)