Visitors curious about Lobster Claws at Aberglasney

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07 Jan 2009

A fascinating flower with lobster-claw type blooms has become a new focal point at Aberglasney Gardens.

This vigorous climbing evergreen shrub with its curious claw-like buds is growing on the sheltered café wall at the gardens and has recently burst into flower for the first time.

The new addition at the historic gardens in Carmarthenshire is the Clianthus puniceus, also known as ‘Lobster Claw,’ which hails from New Zealand’s North Island and is one of the most spectacularly exotic flowering plants that can be grown in the UK.

Its remarkable resemblance to a lobster’s claw is made even more uncanny by the exotic lobster-pink colour of the flowers which hang in drooping clusters.

Graham Rankin, Aberglasney’s Director of Operations said: “The Clianthus puniceus is related to the pea family and is believed to be tough enough to survive a Welsh winter.

“I remember seeing the plant for the first time when I was a student, it was growing in a garden along the west coast of Scotland and its peculiar clusters of flowers fascinated me, I had not seen anything quite like it.”

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