A NEW book has been published telling the story of one of Cornwall’s botanical treasures.

The illustrated book, entitled The Magnolias at Caerhays Castle, relates how the Caerhays estate, on the coast to the south of St Austell, became home to a collection of magnolia trees that has world significance.

The publication, written by estate owner and garden curator Charles Williams, brings together decades of horticultural expertise, family history and global plant hunting expeditions.

Magnolias are among the oldest flowering plants and have long fascinated gardeners and plant hunters. Thanks to the Caerhays estate’s generally mild climate and deep soils, magnolias have grown there at a scale rarely seen outside their natural habitats in Asia and the Americas.

Since 1808, five generations of the Williams family have collected, nurtured and bred plants from around the world. Today, Caerhays holds a national collection of magnolias and is home to more than 750 species, cultivars and hybrids, and Charles is a long-standing member of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Rhododendron, Camellia and Magnolia Group.

Charles, a recipient of the RHS Victoria Medal of Honour and the senior partner of Burncoose Nurseries, has enthusiastically continued the tradition of plant innovation at Caerhays that stretches back over the past two centuries.

His book charts the journey of magnolias from early plant-hunting expeditions in China to modern breeding programmes in Cornwall, Europe, New Zealand and the USA. It also shows how new varieties have expanded the range of colours, sizes and flowering times, meaning magnolias are now suited not only to grand gardens, but to smaller gardens and even containers.

Illustrated with more than 1,000 photographs taken over many spring seasons, including aerial images of mature trees in bloom, the book shows the beauty and scale of the collection, as well as the patience and dedication behind it.