Luculia pinceana Hook.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘It is with no ordinary pleasure, that we are able to present our readers with one of the most lovely and most fragrant plants that it has been our lot to publish in any of our volumes.  Much deserved praise was bestowed on the Luculia gratissima […] but it may be said, without diminishing aught from that species, that the present far excels it, no less in the size and delicacy of its flowers, than in their powerful, yet agreeable fragrance. […] It was raised from seeds received from Nepal by Mr. Pince, (to whom the Royal Gardens are indebted for a plant,) at his Nursery, Exeter, and is cultivated in the greenhouse.  I may observe, that the specimen, figured here, is but a portion of the great compound cyme that was sent, and which would have required a folio plate to render it adequate justice.’  [BM t.4132/1845].  Introduced to Britain in 1843.  [PD].

History at Camden Park

Included among desiderata in a letter to James Backhouse dated 10th April 1846 [MP A2933-1, p.136] and again requested of Backhouse on 1st February, 1849 [MP A2933-1, p.183].  It was included in desiderata to Loddiges’ nursery of 16th April 1846 [MP A2933-1, p.147], 13th February, 1848 [MP A2933-1, p.172] and 1st February, 1849 [MP A2933-1, p.185].  It was also requested of John Lindley on 15th February 1848 [A2933-1, p.157] and Kew around the same time [REF] and again on 1st February, 1849 [MP A2933-1, p.177].  On none of these occasions was the plant recorded as ‘arrived’ on Macarthur’s copies although it seems likely that such perseverance would have yielded a positive result.

Notes