Cytisus scoparius

Cytisus scoparius, the common broom or Scotch broom, syn. Sarothamnus scoparius, is a perennial leguminous shrub native to western and central Europe. In Britain and Ireland, the standard name is broom, but this name is also used for other members of the Genisteae tribe, such as French broom or Spanish broom, and the term common broom is sometimes used for clarification. In other English-speaking countries, the most prevalent common name is Scotch broom (or Scot's broom); English broom is also occasionally used.

Plants of Cytisus scoparius typically grow to 1–3 m (3.3–9.8 ft) tall, rarely to 4 m (13 ft), with main stems up to 5 cm (2.0 in)thick, rarely 10 cm (3.9 in). The shrubs have green shoots with small deciduous trifoliate leaves 5–15 mm long, and in spring and summer is covered in profuse golden yellow flowers 20–30 mm from top to bottom and 15–20 mm wide. Flowering occurs after 50–80 growing degree days. In late summer, its legumes (seed pods) mature black, 2–3 cm long, 8 mm broad and 2–3 mm thick; they burst open, often with an audible crack, forcibly throwing seed from the parent plant. This is the hardiest species of broom, tolerating temperatures down to about −25 °C (−13 °F). C. scoparius contains toxic alkaloids that depress the heart and nervous system.

Lythrum salicaria

Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife) is a flowering plant belonging to the family Lythraceae. It should not be confused with other plants sharing the name loosestrife that are members of the family Primulaceae. Other names include spiked loosestrife, or purple lythrum.


Lythrum salicaria is a herbaceous perennial plant, that can grow 1–2 m tall, forming clonal colonies 1.5 m or more in width with numerous erect stems growing from a single woody root mass. The stems are reddish-purple or red to purple and square in cross-section. The leaves are lanceolate, 3–10 cm long and 5–15 mm broad, downy and sessile, and arranged opposite or in whorls of three.
The flowers are reddish purple, 10–20 mm diameter, with six petals (occasionally five) and 12 stamens, and are clustered tightly in the axils of bracts or leaves; there are three different flower types, with the stamens and style of different lengths, short, medium or long; each flower type can only be pollinated by one of the other types, not the same type, thus ensuring cross-pollination between different plants.

The flowers are visited by many types of insects, and can be characterized by a generalized pollination syndrome.

The fruit is a small 3–4 mm capsule containing numerous minute seeds. Flowering lasts throughout the summer. When the seeds are mature, the leaves often turn bright red through dehydration in early autumn; the red colour may last for almost two weeks. The dead stalks from previous growing seasons are brown.

Campanula glomerata

Campanula glomerata, known by the common names clustered bellflower or Dane's blood, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Campanula, belonging to the family Campanulaceae. It is the county flower of Rutland, England.



The etymology of this plant is quite intuitive: the genus Latin name (“campanula”), meaning small bell, refers to the bell-shape of the flower, while the specific name ("glomerata") refers to the tight grouping of the flowers at the top of the stem.

Campanula glomerata is a perennial herbaceous plant growing to a height of 20–60 centimetres (7.9–23.6 in), with a maximum of 90 centimetres (35 in). The stem is simple, erect and shortly pubescent, basal leaves are petiolated, oval-lanceolate and lightly heart-shaped (cordate), while cauline leaves are lanceolate, sessile and amplexicaul. The inflorescence is formed by 15-20 sessile, actinomorphic and hermaphrodite single flowers of about 2 to 3 cm. They are in terminal racemes or in the axils of upper leaves, surrounded by an involucre of bracts. The corolla is campanulate and pubescent with five dark violet-blue or purplish-blue petals. Flowering period is from June to September.


The species is native to the North Temperate Zone of Eurasia, from Europe to Japan. In Europe it is present almost everywhere except the extreme north. In North America the plant is naturalized.

This plant can be found in forests or dry grasslands, in scrub and open woodland, in grassy but not too wet places, in the edges of woods and along the margins of roads and trails. It prefers calcareous soils, at an altitude up to 1,500 m (4,921 ft) above sea level.

Cyclamen repandum

Cyclamen repandum, the spring sowbread, is a species of flowering plant of the family Primulaceae, native to southern Europe and some Mediterranean islands. It is the most widespread of a group of cyclamens (genus Cyclamen subgenus Psilanthum) with wide, heart-shaped leaves, often coarsely toothed or lobed, and late spring-blooming flowers with long, slender petals.


Cyclamen repandum grows in rocky areas, shrubland, and woodland near the Mediterranean from southeastern France through Italy to Serbia and on Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. The tuber of the C. repandum group roots only from the center of the bottom. Leaves are dark green with a lighter arrowhead pattern, not speckled. Flowers are deep carmine-pink or white, without a darker nose. They lack the auricles present in Cyclamen hederifolium.

Eriophorum angustifolium

Eriophorum vaginatum L. (hare's-tail cottongrass, tussock cottongrass, sheathed cottonsedge) is a species of perennial herbaceous flowering plant in the sedge family Cyperaceae. It is native to bogs and other acidic wetlands throughout the Holarctic Kingdom. It is a 30–60 cm high tussock-forming plant with erect solitary spikelets.



E. vaginatum is a 30–60 cm high tussock-forming plant. The inflorescence is a dense, tufted cyme with erect solitary, multiflowered spikelets. It is rhizomatous, with leaves usually longer than the stem, and the fruit is an achene. Each individual tussock comprises 300–600 tillers, which contain two to three needle-like leaves enclosed in a sheath at the base. The density of tillers in a tussock depends both upon the diameter of the tussock (tiller density decreases as tussock diameter increases) and invasion by mosses and shrubs, factors which also affect tiller size and robustness of tiller production.

Hieracium pilosella

Hieracium pilosella (syn. Pilosella officinarum), known as mouse-ear hawkweed, is a yellow-flowered species of flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae, native to Europe and northern Asia. It produces single, lemon-coloured inflorescences. It is an allelopathic plant. Like most hawkweed species, it is highly variable and is a member of a species complex of several dozens of subspecies and hundreds of varieties and forms.


It is a hispid (hairy) perennial plant, with a basal rosette of leaves. The whole plant, with the exception of the flower parts, is covered in glandular hairs, usually whitish, sometimes reddish on the stem. The rosette leaves are entire, acute to blunt, and range from 1–12 centimetres (0.39–4.72 in) long and 0.5–2 centimetres (0.20–0.79 in) broad. Their underside is tomentose (covered with hair). The flowering stem (scape) is generally between 5–50 centimetres (2.0–19.7 in) tall, and sprouts from the centre of the basal rosette. The flowerheads are borne singly on the scape and are a pale lemon-yellow colour, with the outermost ligules having a reddish underside. It flowers from May until August and the flowers are visited by various groups of insects, especially flies.

The plant favours dry, sunny areas. It grows well on sandy and similarly less fertile ground types. It produces stolons are which generate a new rosette at their extremity, each rosette has the possibility of developing into a new clone forming dense mats in open space. It also propagates by seeds.

It is a known allelopathic plant, whose roots secrete several substances inhibiting root growth, including its own. It can be controlled through rotation with clover and grasses where possible.

Recent research claims that Hieracium pilosella exhibits an atavism by the reemergence of sexual reproduction.

Primula elatior

Primula elatior, the oxlip (or true oxlip), is a species of flowering plant in the family Primulaceae, native to nutrient-poor and calcium-rich damp woods and meadows throughout Europe, with northern borders in Denmark and southern parts of Sweden, eastwards to the Altai Mountains and on the Kola Peninsula in Russia. In the British Isles, it is rarely seen outside East Anglia. It may be found near settlements, as far north as northern Norway, after escaping cultivation.

The oxlip is a herbaceous, perennial plant growing to 30 cm (12 in) tall by 25 cm (10 in) broad, with a rosette of leaves 5–15 cm long and 2–6 cm broad. It produces light yellow flowers in spring, in clusters of 10-30 together on a single stem 10–30 cm (4–12 in) tall, each flower 9–15 mm broad.

The specific epithet elatior means "taller".[3] The common name "oxlip", from "ox" and "slip", may refer to the fact that oxlips (and cowslips) are often found in boggy pasture used by cattle.

It may be confused with the closely related Primula veris (cowslip), which has a similar general appearance, although P. veris has smaller, bell-shaped, bright yellow flowers (and red dots inside the flower), and a corolla tube without folds. The leaves of P. veris are more spade-shaped than P. elatior.
The flower heads on the oxlip all hang in the one general direction, which distinguishes it from the similar False Oxlip, a Primrose/Cowslip natural hybrid, where the blooms are distributed all around the stem.

The oxlip was voted the County flower of Suffolk in 2002 following a poll by the wild plant conservation charity Plantlife.

Helleborus foetidus

Helleborus foetidus, known variously as stinking hellebore, dungwort, setterwort and bear's foot, is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to the mountainous regions of Central and Southern Europe, Greece and Asia Minor. It is found wild in many parts of England, especially on limestone soil.



It is an evergreen perennial growing to 80 cm (31 in) tall and 100 cm (39 in) across, with a thick succulent stem and glossy leaves. The drooping cup-shaped flowers appear in spring, and are yellowish-green, often with a purple edge to the five petal-like sepals on strongly upright stems. The flowers, typically for the family, contain numerous stamens as well as up to ten nectaries which make them attractive to bees and other insects. Each flower produces up to five (usually three) wrinkled follicles. Despite its common name, it is not noticeably malodorous, although the foliage is pungent when crushed.
All parts of the plant are poisonous, containing glycosides. Symptoms of intoxication include violent vomiting and delirium.
Yeasts colonise the nectaries of stinking hellebore and their presence has been found to raise the temperature of the flower, which may aid in attracting pollinators to the flower by increasing the evaporation of volatile organic compounds. It was the first species in which this effect was discovered.

H. foetidus is grown in gardens for its handsome evergreen foliage and large numbers of green, bell-shaped flowers borne in late winter. It prefers woodland conditions with deep, fertile, moist, humus rich, well-drained soil, and dappled shade. The species is, however, drought-tolerant. It often occurs naturally on chalk or limestone soils.
This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
The cultivar 'Green Giant' has very bright green flowers and finely divided foliage; 'Miss Jekyll' has fragrant flowers, intensity varying with the time of day; 'Wester Flisk Group' has red-tinted leaves and stems and gray-green flowers; the 'Sierra Nevada Group' is dwarf, reaching 30 cm.

Propagation is by division or from seed, which can be prolific, naturalising well in ideal conditions. Rodents should be kept away from the garden since they depredate the seeds either when still in fruiting plants within the carpels or from the floor after seed release.

Anemone narcissiflora

Anemone narcissiflora, the narcissus anemone or narcissus-flowered anemone, is a herbaceous perennial in the genus Anemone and the buttercup family.

Plants grow 7 to 60 cm tall, from a caudex (woody-like perennial base), flowering spring to mid summer but often found flowering till late summer. They have 3-10 basal leaves that are ternate (arranged with three leaflets), rounded to rounded triangular in shape with 4-to-20-millimetre long petioles.
The flowers are produced in clusters (umbels) with 2 to 8 flowers, but often appear singly. The inflorescence have 3 leaf-like bracts similar in appearance to the basal leaves but simple and greatly reduced in size, pinnatifid in shape. Flowers have no petals, but instead have 5-9 petal-like sepals that are white, blue-tinted white or yellow in color. The flowers usually have 40 to 80 stamens but can have up to 100.

After flowering, fruits are produced in rounded heads with 5–14-centimetre long pedicels. When the fruits, called achenes, are ripe they are ellipsoid to ovate in outline, flat in shape and 5 to 9 millimetres (3⁄16 to 11⁄32 in) long and 4–6 millimetres  wide. The achenes are winged with no hairs and have 0.8–1.5-millimetre long beaks that are curved or recurved.

Anemone narcissiflora is native to north western North America and Eurasia where it can be found growing in high mountain alpine grasslands, in thickets, grassy meadows with moist soils, tundra, open woods, along roadsides and in pastures.

Geum rivale

Geum rivale, the water avens, is a flowering plant of the family Rosaceae. Other names for the plant are nodding avens, drooping avens, cure-all, water flower and indian chocolate. It is native to much of Europe, with the exception of Mediterranean areas, as well as some parts of Central Asia and North America. In North America, it is known as purple avens. It grows in bogs and damp meadows, and produces nodding red flowers from May to September.
The plant is a native perennial of slow-draining or wet soils and can tolerate mildly acidic to calcareous conditions in full sun or under partial shade. 

Habitats include stream sides, pond edges, damp deciduous woodland and hay meadows.
G. rivale is pollinated primarily by bees, less often by flies and beetles. As the flower matures, elongation of the stamens ensures it self-fertilises if not already cross-pollinated. The flowers stigmas mature before the stamens. It begins flowering a little earlier than G. urbanum, so early pollinations will be within the gene-pool of the single species. The seeds of Water Avens are burr-like, and are distributed after being caught in the coats of rabbits and other small mammals, and by rhizomal growth

Leopoldia comosa

Leopoldia comosa (syn. Muscari comosum) is a perennial bulbous plant. Usually called the tassel hyacinth or tassel grape hyacinth, it is one of a number of species and genera also known as grape hyacinths. It is found in rocky ground and cultivated areas, such as cornfields and vineyards, in south-east Europe to Turkey and Iran, but has naturalized elsewhere. In southern Italy and Greece, its bulb is a culinary delicacy.

Described by Oleg Polunin as "a striking plant", it has a tuft of bright blue to violet-blue sterile flowers above brownish-green fertile flowers, which open from dark blue buds. This tuft gives rise to the name "tassel hyacinth".The flower stem is 20–60 cm tall; individual flowers are borne on long stalks, purple in the case of the sterile upper flowers. Mature fertile flowers are 5–10 mm long with stalks of this length or more and are bell-shaped, opening at the mouth, where there are paler lobes. The linear leaves are 5–15 mm wide, with a central channel.
Leopoldia comosa naturalizes easily and may become invasive. It has spread northwards from its original distribution, for example appearing in the British Isles in the 16th century.
In a cultivar called 'Monstrosum' or 'Plumosum', all the flowers have become branched purple stems.

Cuisine
The edible bulb is eaten in some Mediterranean countries. In Apulia and Basilicata, it is cultivated and known as lampagioni or lampascioni. In Greek it is called βολβοί, βροβιούς volví, vrovioús. In Greece and especially on Crete, it is considered a delicacy and collected in the wild. The cleaned bulbs are boiled several times, pickled. and then kept in olive oil.

Hieracium villosum

Hieracium villosum, common name shaggy hawkweed, is a species of flowering plant in the aster family.

Hieracium villosum can reach a height of 30–45 centimetres (12–18 in). This plant forms dense basal rosettes of silver-grey, simple, oblong to lanceolate, woolly leaves, about 4.5–8.5 centimetres (1.8–3.3 in) long. The many-stellate flowers are bright yellow, 4–5 centimetres (1.6–2.0 in) large, on white-hairy stems. They bloom from July to August.

This species is native to France, Italy, Central Europe, the Balkan Peninsula, Romania and Russia.

Hieracium villosum can be found in mountain areas in calcareous stony and grassy places, at elevation of 1,400–2,500 metres (4,600–8,200 ft) above sea level.

ampanula trachelium

Campanula trachelium or nettle-leaved bellflower is a species of bellflower. It is a Eurasian blue wildflower native to Denmark and England and now naturalized in southeast Ireland. It is also found southward through much of Europe into Africa.

The alternate name throatwort is derived from an old belief that C. trachelium is a cure for sore throat, and the species name trachelium refers to this old belief. There never was an actual medical benefit from the plant, which had no observable effect on the throat. But in past centuries, belief in the occult doctrine of signatures was very deeply stamped on superstitioius "believers".

Other folknames include Our Lady's Bells because the color blue was identified with the Virgin Mary's scarf, veil, or shawl; Coventry Bells because C. trachelium was especially common in fields around Coventry; and "Bats-in-the-Belfry" or in the singular "Bat-in-the-Belfry", because the stamens inside the flower were like bats hanging in the bell of a church steeple.

ampanula trachelium is a perennial plant with one or more unbranched, often reddish, square-edged stems that are roughly hairy. The leaves grow alternately up the stems. The lower leaves are long-stalked and ovate with a heart-shaped base. The upper leaves have no stalks and are ovate or lanceolate, hairy with toothed margins. The inflorescence is a one sided spike with a few slightly nodding flowers. Each flower has five sepals which are fused, erect and hairy, and the five violet (or occasionally white) petals are fused into a bell that is hairy inside. There are five stamens and a pistil formed from three fused carpels. The fruit is a hairy, nodding capsule.

Clinopodium vulgare

Clinopodium vulgare, wild basil, is a species of flowering plant in the Lamiaceae family.


Wild basil is a perennial rhizomatous herb with square, upright, hairy stems and opposite pairs of leaves. The leaves are hairy, ovate or lanceolate in shape, and have short or no stalks, wedge-shaped bases and bluntly-toothed margins. The inflorescence is a terminal spike consisting of several loose whorls of clusters of flowers growing in the axils of the leaves. Each flower has a short stalk, five sepals about 10 millimetres (0.39 in) long and five petals 12 to 15 millimetres (0.47 to 0.59 in) in length which are fused into a tube. The flowers are pink, violet or purple and have two lips. Each has four stamens, a long style and fused carpals.


Wild basil occurs in suitable locations in most of Europe, in western and central Asia and in North Africa. Its typical habitat is dry grassland and heathland, usually on limestone or chalky soils.

Anemone ranunculoides

Anemone ranunculoides, the yellow anemone, yellow wood anemone or buttercup anemone, is a species of herbaceous perennial plant that grows in forests across most of Continental Europe, and less frequently in the Mediterranean region. It's occasionally found as a garden escape.

It flowers between March and May in the Northern Hemisphere.
Growing to 5–15 centimetres (2.0–5.9 in) tall, the plant is herbaceous, dying back down to its root-like rhizomes by mid summer. The rhizomes spread just below the earth surface and multiply quickly, contributing to its rapid spread in woodland conditions. The flower is about 1.5 centimetres (0.59 in) diameter, with from five to eight petal-like segments (actually tepals) of rich yellow colouring.

The plant is widely grown as a garden plant, especially by rock garden and alpine garden enthusiasts. It has been awarded an Award of Garden Merit or AGM, H4 (hardy throughout the British Isles) by the Royal Horticultural Society.
Anemone ranunculoides 'Frank Waley', a larger-growing, more robust cultivar, is sometimes available, as are the miniature subspecies A. ranunculoides subsp. wockeana and a selection known as A. ranunculoides 'Laciniata', with finely divided leaves. There is also a double-flowered cultivar, A. ranunculoides 'Pleniflora' (also sometimes listed as 'Semiplena' or 'Flore Pleno').

Ophrys sphegodes

Ophrys sphegodes, commonly known as the Early Spider-orchid, is a species of orchid found on alkaline meadows and waste land. It is widespread across most of Europe and the middle East from Britain south to Portugal and east to Iran.
In Britain, it is restricted to parts of Dorset, Hampshire, Kent and Sussex and is regarded as rare although where it is found it may be in stands of many hundreds of plants.


It is classified as a British Red Data Book plant. Despite its apparent vulnerability, it has very successfully colonised the chalk spoil dumping grounds created near Dover at Samphire Hoe from the excavations of the Channel Tunnel. It forms stands of relatively short plants between 30 cm and 40 cm in April and May. The flowers have yellow-green sepals and a velvety brown labellum with a distinctive H marking so that the flowers much resemble an arthropod and especially a spider.

Veronica filiformis

Veronica filiformis is a species of flowering plant in the genus Veronica. It is known by many common names, including slender speedwell, creeping speedwell, threadstalk speedwell and Whetzel weed. It is native to eastern Europe and western Asia, and it is known in many other regions as an introduced species and a common weed.

V. filiformis is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing mats of hairy stems that readily root at nodes that touch substrate. It is self-sterile and rarely seeds, being spread by stolons.

The corolla of V. filiformis is four-lobed and blueish with a white tip, around 8–10 mm in diameter, the top lobe being largest since it is actually a fusion of two lobes. At the center are two long, protruding stamens. 

Solitary flowers occur in leaf axils. They are on relatively long, slender stalks that arise from the leaf axils, and appear between April and July. The leaves, found near the base of the stem, are 5–10 mm across, rounded or kidney-shaped with blunt teeth and short stalks, and smaller on distal parts.It is perennial. In Ireland, the plant was sewn into the clothing of travellers for good luck.

A native to northern Turkey and the Caucasus, V. filiformis was introduced to the United Kingdom from Turkey in 1808 as a rock garden plant and was first reported as an escape in 1838. It was introduced to the United States nursery trade in the 1920s and is now generally considered a weed. 
It can be invading of lawns, sod, and turf, and has become naturalised in gardens and grassy paths and on roadsides. It prefers shade, moist soils, good fertility and a low mowing height, and due to the speed at which is spreads, it is often necessary to use herbicides to remove it.

Anacamptis morio

Anacamptis morio, the green-winged orchid or green-veined orchid (synonym Orchis morio) is a flowering plant of the orchid family, Orchidaceae.

It is a native of western Eurasia, ranging from Europe to Iran. In the British Isles it is found in central-southern England, Wales and Ireland. It grows in grassy meadows, especially on limestone-rich soil, reaching a height of 40 cm.

It flowers from late April to June in the British Isles, and as early as February in other countries, such as France. The inflorescence is of various colours, mainly purple but ranging from white, through pink, to deep purple. From 5 to 25 helmet-shaped flowers grow in a loose, linear bunch at the top of the single stalk. The name morio is derived from the Greek word "moros" meaning "fool". This refers to the colorful, green striped flowers. A pair of lateral sepals with prominent green, occasionally purple veins extend laterally like "wings", giving the orchid its name. The broad, three lobed, lower petal is pale in the center with dark spots.

Leaves are lanceolate, or sometimes ovate, and grow in a rosette around the base of the plan, with some thinner leaves clasping the stem and sheathing almost up to the flowers. Leaves are green and unspotted.


It is similar in appearance to the early purple orchid, Orchis mascula, but has green stripes on the two lateral sepals, and lacks the spots or blotches of the Early Purple's leaves.

Iris pseudacorus

Iris pseudacorus (yellow flag, yellow iris, water flag, lever) is a species in the genus Iris, of the family Iridaceae. It is native to Europe, western Asia and northwest Africa. Its specific epithet, meaning "false acorus," refers to the similarity of its leaves to those of Acorus calamus, as they have a prominently veined mid-rib and sword-like shape.

It is an herbaceous flowering perennial plant, growing to 100–150 centimetres (39–59 in) (or a rare 2 metres (6 ft 7 in)) tall, with erect leaves up to 90 centimetres (35 in) long and 3 centimetres (1.2 in) broad. The flowers are bright yellow, 7–10 centimetres (2.8–3.9 in) across, with the typical iris form. The fruit is a dry capsule 4–7 centimetres (1.6–2.8 in) long, containing numerous pale brown seeds. I. pseudacorus grows best in very wet conditions, and is often common in wetlands, where it tolerates submersion, low pH, and anoxic soils. The plant spreads quickly, by both rhizome and water-dispersed seed. It fills a similar niche to that of Typha and often grows with it, though usually in shallower water. While it is primarily an aquatic plant, the rhizomes can survive prolonged dry conditions.



Large I. pseudacorus stands in western Scotland form a very important feeding and breeding habitat for the endangered corn crake.


I. pseudacorus is one of two iris species native to the United Kingdom, the other being Iris foetidissima (stinking iris).

Salvia patens

alvia patens (sometimes called gentian sage or spreading sage) is a herbaceous perennial that is native to a wide area of central Mexico. It was introduced into horticulture in 1838 and popularized by William Robinson.

Salvia patens is tuberous, and easily lifted for overwintering in a greenhouse. The more common varieties reach 30–60 cm (12–24 in) tall and wide, and are covered with hastate shaped mistletoe-green leaves. Inflorescences reach 15 to 30 cm (5.9 to 11.8 in) or longer, rising well above the leaves. 2.6 cm (1.0 in) pure blue flowers are spaced along the inflorescence, with a 1.3 cm (0.51 in) green calyx that adds to the attractiveness of the flowers.

The specific epithet patens means "spreading".

Salvia patens is frequently treated as an annual by gardeners due to its sensitivity to hard frost, with bedding plants often put out in spring. Varieties have been developed with colors ranging from white to lilac to various shades of blue. Seeds from the Netherlands have been available since the 1990s for rich colored and large flowered varieties. 

The species and its cultivar 'Cambridge blue' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.William Robinson praised the species in the 1933 edition of The English Flower Garden as, "doubtless, the most brilliant in cultivation, being surpassed by and equalled by few other [garden] flowers." A collecting trip to Mexico in 1991 led by James Compton discovered a 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall variety with large deep blue flowers that is available as 'Guanajuato'.