Kimilsungia is a perennial plant of the orchid family that C. L. Bundt, an Indonesian botanist, newly bred in 1964.
In April 1965 when President Kim Il Sung visited the Bogor Botanical Garden during his stay in Indonesia, the former Indonesian President Sukarno showed a flower to him, expressing his willingness to name it after Kim Il Sung.
This is how Kimilsungia came into the world in reflection of the unanimous desire of Sukarno and the Indonesian people deeply respecting and revering Kim Il Sung.
The director of the Bogor Botanical Garden, his son and horticulturists, out of a desire to bring Kimilsungia into full bloom on the Korean soil, made painstaking efforts to complete the method of its cultivation. They sent two full-blown plants of Kimilsungia to the DPRK in 1975 marking the tenth anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s visit to Indonesia.
The stalk of this plant is 30 to 70 cm high and 1 to 1.5 cm in diametre with an average of 6 to 8 nodes, the middle part of which is a little protruding. A flower consists of three petals and three sepals with the same colour of deep pinkish purple, so the sepals, too, look like petals. The apex of a sepal is white. Kimilsungia blooms twice a year. Once coming into bloom the flowers last for 2 to 3 months.
The Kimilsungia Festival is splendidly held in the DPRK in April as an annual event. Not only the Korean people at home and abroad but foreigners exhibit there Kimilsungias they bred with sincerity.
In 1982 Kimilsungia was registered as a new variety of the orchid family to the international orchid-related society in Britain.
