When I ask more knowledgeable gardeners what trees they love the most, it is remarkable how many say the pocket handkerchief tree, Davidia involucrata.
Originally from China, Davidia is a genus with just the one involucrata species. There's nothing else quite like it. Its defining characteristic is its small round red pom pom like flowers cupped by two, much larger, unequally sized white bracts. These hang like a white handkerchief from the hand. Some see them as ghostly or dove-like or giving the effect of large butterflies fluttering in the wind. Whatever, they are a delight and can cover the tree in early May.
The tree in the photos is one I saw last weekend in a garden in Devon. Now 20 years old, it has only flowered the last three or four years. So, as with other flowering trees, such as the Tulip Tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, you have to wait. But it is well worth it.
Davidia involucrata was introduced to this country from China in 1902 by a young plant hunter, Ernest Wilson. Three years earlier, aged just 22, he had set off from England in search of this single tree with just a hand drawn map and some rough instructions. With no Chinese, he overcame bandits, fever and near drowning in a rocky river to track down the tree in the remote Western Hubei province... only to find it had been chopped down and used for the door frames of a house built next to it!
Then, by chance a short while later, he stumbled across two specimens of the tree in the same region.
Wilson devotes a whole chapter of his book 'Aristocrats of the Garden' to the adventure. Trees from the seed he collected did not flower here until May 1911, but received the highest award at that season's Royal Horticultural Society show.
Davidia involucrata matures into a sizeable tree (10-15m) and will grow best in a sunny, sheltered position in deep fertile soil. Large oval green fruit form after pollination and turn a yellowy brown or purple on red stalks in autumn; while the green leaves can turn a pleasing plum purple before they fall.