Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum 'Illustris' prophouse-winter-2028 but arrives early enough to

but arrives early enough to feed the first bees of the year

the Chinese swamp cypress has been all but erased from the wild

an evergreen cousin of the fragrant winter witch-hazels

The hybrid

distinctive evergreen

Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum 'Illustris' prophouse-winter-2028 but arrives early enough toThis one comes with a paper trail. 'Illustris' was first described in 1873 by William Bull, the Chelsea nurseryman, who listed the plant as Alocasia illustris in his catalogue of new and rare plants and sold them out of his glasshouses at 536 King's Road. Nobody knows quite where they came from. Colocasia esculenta is a restless, variable species, and Bull had rivers of tropical material moving through the place, so the likeliest story is that he