Living fossils
MATURE Wollemi pines, 10ft tree ferns, aged olives and bravura niwaki are all what I call VIPs, very important and/or impressive plants—singular specimens of high value and cost that are show-stopping and show-garden ready. Some worthy gardeners scorn them for being un-English, egregious, extravagant and bought not only ready-made, but often from growers overseas. I am emphatically not of their mind. Garden plants have disorders enough without tall-poppy syndrome.
In any case, some, a Chinese cycad that was unknown to science until 1981, when it was discovered near the city of Panzhihua, in the south of Sichuan. It is very impressive, grandeur and gracefulness mixed.
