Rare Goat Horn Flowering Tree Blossoms After 91 Years

A Chinese goat horn tree brought to England many summers ago finally has a flower. After 91 years in a shady grove at the National Trust’s Northern Ireland headquarters at Rowallane, Saintfield, a rare tree is flowering for the first time in its life. The unusual plant known as the Goat Horn Tree in its native China has finally started to put out buds for the first time in nearly a century.

A Goat Horn Trees, native to China is flowering its pale, aromatic blossoms for the very first time ever. Sadly though, its attempt to find another tree with which to reproduce will likely be in vain as there's only one more like it in the whole country.

After the flowers come long curved, spindle-shaped fruits which resemble the horn of the goat and give the plant its name. A sapling from the original seeds was planted in the gardens of Rowallane country estate in Saintfield in 1919.

There are only two specimens from the original Wilson seed introduction currently alive, with the other at Birr Castle, County Offal in the Irish Republic. All others appear to have died out in the middle of the 20th century.