Discover the Middlemist Red Flower: The World’s Rarest Flower

Flowers are incredibly beautiful and sometimes intriguing plant structures. The purpose of flowers is to attract pollinators to the plant that help it to reproduce. Flowers vary widely in color, shape, and size. Their often bright coloring serves to attract pollinators to them. There are nearly 300,000 known and described species of flowering plants growing all over the world. While many flowers are widespread and abundant, growing in fields and on roadsides, some are quite rare. Flowers can be rare due to many reasons. Some flowers only bloom in specific times and conditions. Others are rare due to habitat loss or competition with other species. Many flowering plant species are endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This article explores the rarest flower in the world: the ‘Middlemist Red’.

With only two known living ‘Middlemist Red’ flower shrubs, one in England and one in New Zealand, this flower is incredibly rare. This rare flower has a mysterious and fascinating history, and it is a miracle that it survives to this day. This article details the discovery, history, and cultivation of the ‘Middlemist Red’.

Middlemist Red Flower Description

The ‘Middlemist Red’ flower is the rarest cultivar of the common camellia (Camellia japonica) species. Interestingly, the ‘Middlemist Red’ flower isn’t actually red at all. These flowers are instead a deep pink color. The flowers grow on incredibly large evergreen shrubs. Common camellia shrubs are usually 4.9-19.7 feet tall, but sometimes grow up to 36 feet tall. The shrubs have thick, dark green leaves that grow in an alternate pattern. Additionally, the leaves are around 2.0-4.3 inches long by 1.0-2.4 inches wide. The flowers of common camellia grow along its branches, and they can appear alone or in pairs. They are 2.4-3.9 inches in diameter. In the wild, common camellia plants flower January to March and fruit September to October.

The common camellia flower has medicinal properties, and a tea made from the flowers was drank in China. A study in 2022 found that these incredible flowering shrubs have antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer agents.

Middlemist Red Flower Discovery and Rarity

The rarest flower in the world was first collected from China in 1804 by John Middlemist. This flower was taken to Kew Gardens in London. However, the flower mysteriously disappeared from there.

In 1824, a ‘Middlemist Red’ appeared in the conservatory of the sixth Duke of Devonshire. During The Blitz of World War II, when Germany was bombing the United Kingdom, the Duke’s conservatory was almost destroyed. The conservatory was actually hit by a bomb, but was miraculously saved when the bomb failed to explode. Today, the Duke of Devonshire’s conservatory is home to one of the two ‘Middlemist Red’ plants in the world.

The other plant lives in the Treaty House in Waitangi, New Zealand. How the flower made its way to New Zealand is a mystery, but it was allegedly planted there in 1833. It is also a mystery why there are no longer any ‘Middlemist Red’ flowers living in their original home in China. This unique flower’s absence from the wild and appearance in only two gardens makes it the rarest flower in the world.

Preservation of The World’s Rarest Flower

The ‘Middlemist Red’ flower is relatively easy to propagate and grow. It prefers shade or semi-shade and well-drained, but still moist, soil. The soil should also be slightly acidic.

If there is any hope for this flower to become less rare and repopulate its native China, it begins with the last remaining plants in England and New Zealand. If cuttings are allowed to be taken from these plants, they can grow new ‘Middlemist Red’ flowers. To grow a new plant from a cutting, one needs to place the cutting in water and allow one to two months for new roots to grow. Then, the cutting can be planted in soil. However, it is unclear if either of these locations will ever allow cuttings to be taken from these plants. If they never allow this, the ‘Middlemist Red’ flower will remain the rarest flower in the world.

For now, in order to observe the beauty and rarity of the ‘Middlemist Red’ flower, one has to travel to England or New Zealand.