Blue ginger

Dichorisandra thyrsiflora

Elizabeth Farm

'A noted horticulturist'

Blue ginger was one of many hundreds of exotic plants William Macarthur – the horticulturist son of Elizabeth Farm founders John and Elizabeth – grew at the family estate at Camden Park, where he established a nursery.

Macarthur sourced plants from the world’s most notable nurseries and collectors, and sent plants and seeds from his vast collection of Australian flora in return. Camden plants flowered at Vaucluse House, Elizabeth Bay House and in many other grand 19th-century Sydney estates, and the plant catalogues Macarthur compiled are invaluable for the insights they give into the gardens of the colonial well-to-do. Blue ginger is unusual for being listed just once, in 1857, suggesting that even a plantsman as skilled as Macarthur was unable to get the subtropical Brazilian native to withstand Camden’s cold winters.