Crimson Flowered Broad Beans are a variety that dates back to the 1700s. They would have been lost had not a lady called Rhoda Cutbush retrieved the last few beans in existence from a tin in her shed in Kent in 1978. She donated them to the Heritage Seed Library who returned them to cultivation.
 I mentioned back in February that I bought a packet at a seed fair with the intention of planting them on the allotment and now they're flowering nicely in a deep shade of crimson. Rhoda Cutbush passed away in 2003 at the age of 98 but the Crimson Flowered Broad Bean lives on.