William Gregor MacKenzie

MacKenzie accepted the prestigious post of curator at the Chelsea Physic Garden in 1946, where he remained until his retirement in 1973.

[1] Edward Augustus Bowles chaired the panel that selected MacKenzie as curator, where he initially restored the garden from wartime neglect and then reinvigorated it as a centre for horticulture[3] In 1961, Bill MacKenzie was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour by the Royal Horticultural Society.

[2] It is an herbaceous perennial with trailing stems and has narrow, light green leaves and solitary, terminal, rich blue, funnel-shaped flowers with darker stripes on the outside.

[4] The author and gardener Valerie Finnis, in her work as a plant breeder, developed a cross between an "orange-peel" clematis (C. orientalis and C. tangutica) at the Waterperry School of Horticulture in 1968 which she named for Bill MacKenzie.

Its flowers are 6-7cm in width with four thick, spreading bright yellow sepals surrounding dark stamens from early to late summer.