Bingo! No doubt at all that’s what it was. I was way off on the family. ... but it was about 15 feet away behind dirty glass. Why didnt I recognise it? I‘m sure I’ve come across it before. Thanks, Dave.

p.s. sorry, no chance of a close up. The greenhouse was locked. I could only see it through the glass.

i looked it up to see the flowers: surely is pretty. look here. are flowers always so thick set?

I very much doubt it. That looks like a highly manipulated photo. I’ve only ever seen this one specimen and the flowers were much sparser, as they are in other online images.

I have long grown this plant in Southern California. The number of flowers in the photo actually looks rather sparse compared to the number that my plants produce. It is dark out now, and a heavy bloom period is just finishing up, but even at this stage, my plants probably have more buds than is shown in the photo. The buds on the branch groups do not tend to open all at once, so even though you see many, they don't tend to open in huge clusters for a blanket effect; it visually is more hundreds of individual blooms, for a very long period of time.

ETA: I didn't see Petrushka's link until now. That grouping of flowers is something I could easily have duplicated during the high bloom period, even though mine are espaliers, and I prune the heck out of the plants. The color in the link photo is a bit higher contrast and more vivid than actual IMO, but the flower count isn't unrealistic.

Thanks, gyr. Your experience is much greater than mine. I've only ever seen this one specimen in a cool greenhouse in cloudy England and pictures online. I was going by that and the fact that unscrupulous sellers do often manipulate illustrations to make bloom look denser.

Well, i try to post links that i think reasonably reliable. Van Meuwen appears to be Dutch and also has British presence. hardly an unscrupulous seller…besides they have the plant you are interested in in yr country.

pretty plant anyhoo..never seen it before. will make a note for the future.

@gyr_falcon,

can we see a pic of yr plant? just curious how large it is. they say it can be bonsai-ed. so can be grown in a pot too, perhaps on a balcony?