This is second time lucky for this plant outside. I did initially put it out about three years ago. It was looking well tucked under an old Tsuga dumosa. Unfortunately during that winter it was flattened by a falling limb and so it had to spend the next few years recuperating inside the glasshouse. It has responding well to a heavy haircut and has shot back up again as can be seen in this image. Its taxonomic background is quite complicated as most of its relatives grow in Central America and the Genus is accepted now by many botanists to be Magnolia rather than Talauma.

It was collected by Keith Rushforth in Arunachal Pradesh from evergreen forest at only medium altitudes. It will be tender looking at the accompanying flora but with some size to the trunk now I am hoping that if it does suffer in the winter there will be enough root and stem energy to spark it up again next season. JD Hooker first named this plant after his travels in Sikkim in the 1850’s. He describes the flower as having a strong scent with purplish outa tepals surrounding a row of pure white inner tepals, well we are definitely looking forward to that one day!