Kalmia latifolia

Today's the day ……………………. for a Quaker Botanist

I absolutely love this shrub that grows in our garden - a gift from a past resident who must have chosen to plant it back in the mists of time.  It's flowering a little later than normal but it's a Kalmia latifolia or the Mountain Laurel - and I always think that the flower buds look like those piped-icing decorations that you get on cakes.  Kalmia is one of the plants introduced into this country by the Quaker merchant, Peter Collinson.

Although Collinson was a cloth merchant by vocation, largely trading with North America, his real love was gardening. Through his business contacts he obtained samples of seeds and plants from around the world.   He came to realise that there was a market for such things in England, and in the late 1730s began to import North American botanical seeds for English collectors to grow. He financed the travels of the American plant collector, John Bartram and distributed the New World seeds collected by Bartram to British gentry, nurserymen, and natural scientists.

And I'm absolutely delighted that this one has found its way to our garden here ……………………...