Mountain Devil (Lambertia formosa)

The stunning Mountain Devil (Lambertia formosa) of New South Wales was among the first Australian plants to be brought into cultivation. James Lee and Lewis Kennedy grew it in their Vineyard Nursery, Hammersmith, for sale to wealthy European plant-lovers. The Empress Josephine was a client. Her Jardin de la Malmaison held one of the world's finest collections of Australian species. I photographed this specimen at the more modest Karwarra Gardens near Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges.

Of all the plants yet introduced from New Holland, that have hitherto flowered with us, this unquestionably takes the lead for beauty, considering the plant altogether. It is a hardy greenhouse plant, growing to the height of six or eight feet before it flowers; when the blossoms break from the ends of almost every branch. The seeds of this plant were among the first which arrived from Botany Bay, in the year 1788; when two varieties of it were raised by Messrs. Lee and Kennedy, at their nursery, who were fortunate enough to procure all the seeds which came home that season. This fine genus has received its title, (under the sanction of Dr. Smith, see the Linn. Trans. page 214, vol. 3.) from Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Esq. Fellow of the Royal and Linnæan Societies; a gentleman whose zeal for the advancement of the science is unbounded, and whose labours to that end, as well as his endeavours to render botany of universal benefit, by combining the useful with the pleasing (witness his work on the Cinchonas, or Jesuits' Barks) do him the greatest credit.

Henry Andrews (1797)
The Botanist's Repository for New and Rare Plants