Summer brings an abundance of blooms at the Missouri Botanical Garden, from Japanese water irises to Asiatic lilies. Roses, too, are among the flowers blooming, and one rose is especially intriguing: the apothecary’s rose.

Gardeners divide the rose family into modern roses and old roses. Any plant bred after 1867 when the first hybrid tea rose was introduced is considered a modern rose. The apothecary’s rose predates 1867, making it an old rose. In fact, it is a very close relative to species roses that would have been found in the wild before cultivation.

A critically endangered agave plant that flowers just once every 20 years bloomed early this spring in the Missouri Botanical Garden greenhouses. The Agave pelona is monocarpic, meaning that the plant will die after blooming.

One in Every Color: Tulips have a wide range of hues encompassing every color of the rainbow except a true blue. Spring colors like pink, yellow and purple tend to be the most popular, but tulips also come in shades like green and peach. “Queen of Night,” is a deep-burgundy variety that appears almost black and is striking in the Garden's bright landscapes. The Garden is experimenting with using species tulips, the wild relatives of tulips traditionally found in landscapes that have been bred for large, colorful blooms.

Ansellia africana is also known as the leopard orchid due to its beautiful spotted yellow flowers. It is also known as the "trash bucket" orchid because it will produce numerous non-absorbing airborne roots to collect leaf litter when nitrogen levels are not sufficient. This leaf litter will then break down and provide the plant with nutrients. Ansellia africana is a very large species that can reach weights of over a metric ton with pseudobulbs reaching 60 centimeters long. Flowers have a fragrance similar to cut Christmas greens. This orchid is endangered in the wild.

On an autumn day, the Missouri Botanical Garden is brimming with color from a diverse array of fall foliage. Among the most striking hues is the golden yellow of the bottlebrush buckeye that lines the sidewalk leading south from the Climatron. This eye-catching plant is also of conservation in North America.

Bottlebrush buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, is endemic to Alabama, southwest Georgia and one county in South Carolina. The species is considered G3-Vunerable in NatureServe, with an estimate of less than 100 occurrences.

This unique, red-fleshed apple is native to Central Asia and is a wild relative of our modern grocery store apples. It is rare throughout its range and threatened by expansion of agriculture and human encroachment. Overgrazing by cattle is preventing natural regeneration. Garden staff collected seed from this species in Kyrgyzstan in August of 2018 as part of a project to conserve nine species of crop wild relatives in Central Asia, including species of apple, pear, plum, almond, apricot, hawthorn and cherry.