World's rarest camellia in full bloom | Gardens

Plant-lovers will have to take it on trust, as its magnificent Georgian home still has the builders in, but one of the rarest flowers in the world is in full bloom. The Middlemist's Red camellia has been flowering for more than two centuries within a couple of miles of its first home outside China. There

Gardens This article is more than 13 years old

World's rarest camellia in full bloom

This article is more than 13 years oldMiddlemist's Red – thought to be only one of two in the world – is blooming in the 19th-century conservatory at Chiswick House

Plant-lovers will have to take it on trust, as its magnificent Georgian home still has the builders in, but one of the rarest flowers in the world is in full bloom.

The Middlemist's Red camellia has been flowering for more than two centuries within a couple of miles of its first home outside China. There are believed to be only two left in the world – the one lighting up the Duke of Devonshire's conservatory at Chiswick, west London, and another in Waitangi, New Zealand.

The plant was collected in China in 1804 by John Middlemist, from Shepherd's Bush, west London, who gave it to Kew Gardens. It has vanished from there, but by 1823 a descendant was nearby, in the camellia collection which the sixth Duke of Devonshire housed in the 300ft-long (91-metre) conservatory he added to his great-grandfather's Palladian villa, Chiswick House.

By the late 19th century the house was rented out to a variety of tenants and the conservatory fell into ruin. It lost its glass in the blitz, but escaped total destruction when it took a hit from a bomb which failed to explode.

Local volunteers helped patch up the conservatory and rescue the camellias in the 1980s. It took plant scientists more than a decade to identify most of the species. Some turned out to be unique, making up one of the greatest historic camellia collections in the world: seven still evade identification.

The gardens are in the final stages of a £12.1m restoration by the Chiswick House and Gardens Trust and English Heritage. The gardens will reopen in June, but the public will have to wait until next spring to see Middlemist's Red in bloom again – and will find that it is not red at all, but a deep pink.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKSZm7KiusOsq7KklWR%2FcX2PaKSaql9lhnC5yJ2bpZ2dnsC1edGem2abkaKyrbjImmScoJmoxKqvymafqK2jmg%3D%3D

 Share!