Wilson 50 Azaleas

The ‘Wilson 50’ Azaleas

The Wilson 50 evergreen azalea collection is a set of named selections made by the famous Plant Collector, Ernest Henry Wilson during his second visit to Japan in 1918.

Accompanied by Mr H Suzuki of the Yokohama Nursery Company, he visited the many azalea nurseries in Kurume City and decided that Mr Kijiro Akashi had the best collection of varieties from which to choose. A selection of ‘Kurume Azaleas’ was made and two sets of the chosen forty-three plants were ordered. Mr Akashi and his colleague Mr Kuwano were regarded as ‘experts’ and so were asked to choose the best six azaleas from Wilson’s selection, all published later in the Monograph of Azaleas by Wilson and Rehder (1921). See here

According to Wilson, he changed his mind about the number of azaleas to be selected and two collections of fifty-two named and numbered azaleas arrived in Boston on 24th April 1919, forty-nine of which were shown at the Massachusetts Horticultural Show in March 1920. Intriguingly, the herbarium specimens taken at this Show, held by both Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the Arnold Arboretum in Massachusetts, clearly show fifty-three azaleas in the collection . . .

. . . this is where the collection becomes a ‘numbers game’ and the ‘fun’ begins. The inconsistencies, errors and omissions within the list of the Wilson 50 that was published in the Monograph have brought challenges to identifying these more than a century old varieties which are still in cultivation: for example, the hose-in-hose characteristic of some of the azaleas is noted inconsistently; one name, with a description, is published of an azalea that isn’t known in Japan and a different name is shown within the herbarium specimens; three others were not known to the Akashi Nursery in 1918 but two of them were said to grow near Tokyo.

What we do know is that Wilson had the azaleas propagated under glass, as the weather conditions at the Arnold Arboretum are not suited to growing Kurume Azaleas outside, and that at a later date, in the early 1920s, two sets of the entire collection were sent to the UK: one to J C Williams at Caerhays Castle in Cornwall and the second to J B Stevenson at Tower Court in Berkshire.

With plenty more tales to tell of the chequered history of the Wilson 50 azaleas since their arrival in the West, it’s easy to see why this story has become a fable and led dedicated researchers into an all-consuming quest to identify and verify what remains in cultivation today in the hope of reinstating a complete set for future enthusiasts to enjoy.