IT grows for seven years, flowers once for a week, and then it's gone.
This grand looking Chinese Cardiocrinum is at the start of its single week of flowering.
It is to be found at Wytherstone Gardens, home of Lady Clarissa Collin, at Pockley, near Helmsley, where it has been growing for the last seven years. It will flower only once before dying. It is now five feet tall with 11 big white lily flowers on the stalk.
Head gardener Jonathan Parkinson, pictured with the flower, said that people had only this week to see the plant before it died.
The original plant was collected on a plant exhibition to China in 1985 by J B Simmons and the late Jim Russell of Castle Howard.
Wytherstone Gardens is open to the public in aid of charitable causes several times a year.
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