One of the rarest flowers in the world is still pleasing the world with its beauty.

The Middlemist's Red camellia, which braved the battle of Trafalgar, has been blooming for over two hundred years.

The Middlemist's Red camellia is considered to be one of the only two examples of variety all over the world. One of the two is at the Duke of Devonshire's conservatory at Chiswick in west London, while another is at Waitangi in New Zealand.

Gardener John Middlemist had brought the rate plant to the UK from China in 1804 and presented it to Kew Gardens. But, sometime near 1823 the plant was moved to the West London conservatory.

The conservatory at Chiswick in west London lost all its glasses during the Blitz. The building even serves as a lunatic asylum. By the 1980s, it turned into a ruin.

But, the intervention of volunteers saved the conservatory and its rare camellia.