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Kalmia latifolia
A flower I have never grown, having never gardened in the kind of acid soil it loves. Yet each time I see it I am touched, and rather amused, by its little frilly flowers, its buds like little cog wheels opening with a sort of umbrella action to become perfect little clock-faces, the twelve hours marked with pink dots. I wonder why 'clock flower' is not one of its many names, which range from 'Mountain laurel' and 'Calico bush' to 'Sheepkill' and 'Spoonwood'. Odd to make spoons, you might think, out of a plant every part of which is poisonous.
I took this photograph in an ancient Welsh garden where the rhododendrons had reached the size of buses and the kalmias the size of taxis. Arcostophylos uva-ursi (or bearberry) had spread by suckers to the size of a tennis court. Kalmias range the length of America's East Coast, but they love it most where the soil is acid and the rain generous. Dolgellau suits them fine.
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