Description
Slender stems of 30-70cm, with several, elegant, broad petalled, shell-pink flowers in summer. The parent plants of the strain offered were selected for improved, darker, colouring. Ideal in cool, humus-rich soils in light shade and it loves it here sharing the garden with Trillium, Hepatica and Eranthis, under the shade of coppiced Hazel. It is fully hardy with us and prefers cool damp climates over hot dry ones.
It is hard to describe just how this species stands out as being so very good but this is one of the aristocrats of the genus, the epitome of everything lacking in the modern hybridists’ Frankenstein creations.
Found and introduced, just once, in Burma, by Frank Kingdon-Ward and named after his wife (née Macklin). Subsequently this has been found in adjacent areas and it is now know to also occur in mountain meadows in the Naga region of India.
