Meet the plants

Living Collection highlights for the restored Palm Houses

Now unified into one cathedral-like temperate space, the restored Palm Houses are ready to welcome back nearly 600 plants – but which ones will be chosen from around 24,000 individual specimens in our Glasshouse Collection?

Naturally, palms will play a key role in the new planting plan, but so will ferns – inspired by pteridomania – the Victorian passion for all things fern-related.

The Horticulture team will begin by planting the 30 largest specimens, including towering palms, before completing the planting with an understorey of the massive – and incredibly diverse – Begonia family and many other species key to the Garden’s core research.

Here are some of the notable plants that will shortly be returning to the Palm Houses:

Sphaeropteris medullaris

With an ink-black trunk and fronds of up to five metres long, the striking Sphaeropteris medullaris or black tree fern, will take pride of place in the centre of the oldest Palm House, in the spot where the 200-year-old Sabal mexicana once stood. A native of New Zealand and the South-West Pacific, it is expected to reach up to 16 metres in height.

Trachycarpus princeps

One of the most unique specimens is a towering Trachycarpus princeps, or stone gate palm. Standing over eight metres tall, it’s likely to be the tallest in cultivation outside China. Native to the limestone cliffs of Yunnan, it arrived at the Garden as a tiny, wild-collected seedling in 1997. Thirty years later, it’s the tallest plant to be returned to the Palm Houses.

Valdivia gayana

Known in its native Chile as the lion plant, Valdivia gayana dazzles with vivid magenta blooms. But, with habitats vanishing and replaced by commercial plantations, this colourful shrub is likely to be added to the IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of Nature), list of endangered species. Our horticulturists are working hard to crack the code of its cultivation, giving this spectacular plant a fighting chance of survival.