A RARE daffodil, saved from extinction by a dedicated band of flower lovers, has finally been given pride of place on home soil.

After a seven-year search, a handful of bulbs of the elusive Weardale Perfection were planted in a churchyard in Wolsingham, County Durham, not far from the spot where banker and naturalist William Backhouse first grew it.

It is planned to plant other bulbs in villages up and down Weardale when they are cultivated.

"This is a very special day," said June Crosby, chairwoman of the Weardale Society, which backed the hunt for the daffodil ten years ago and hosted yesterday's planting ceremony.

"There was a real danger of the flower disappearing into oblivion. Now, it will be planted in other little places in the dale."

Weardale Perfection was first cultivated by Backhouse, a member of the influential Darlington banking family, at St John's Hall, Wolsingham, in the 1840s. He had a passion for the flower and grew a huge variety of them in a little sun porch.

But a lot of daffodils and other varieties of flowers died off during the First World War.

Dr David Willis, who has successfully grown Weardale Perfection in the garden of his home at Sheriff Hutton, near York, said finding it was like "looking for a needle in a haystack".

He described how varieties of the flower had been found in Weardale, but there were "nagging doubts if they were the real thing".

The breakthrough finally came when the search team was invited to inspect daffodils growing in a tub in retired nurse Jessie Young's garden in Wolsingham.

"Unfortunately, they were not in bloom, so we had to wait until the next year to confirm they were the real thing," said Dr Willis, who did much of his research into the flower at the University of Ulster.

"What makes Weardale Perfection special is its size," he said. "It is a very, very large daffodil, with a stem 24 inches long and a flower with a diameter of up to five inches."

Margaret Kyte, of Allenheads, Northumberland, another member of the rescue team, said: "I had a lump in my throat when we saw this flower. But I also had a gut feeling that after so long we had finally found the Backhouse daffodil."

Jan Dalton, from Richmond, archivist and former chairman of the national Daffodil Society, who was also at yesterday's ceremony, said: "It's exactly 200 years since William Backhouse was born, so it's fitting we should be re-planting the daffodil he cultivated so many years ago here in Weardale. I am proud to be part of the team that has saved it.