The rhododendron currently planted in the courtyard of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum were originally growing in the garden of Mr. Misao Ikeda, which was located in Nagasaki City's Aburagi-machi (Saigo at the time of the bombing).

Mr. Ikeda was stationed in Shanghai, China, but upon returning to Nagasaki after demobilization in 1946 he found that his house, located 1.1km from the hypocenter, had been destroyed and five members of his family had been killed including his mother, wife and newly born eldest son. Amidst all this, the pines and rhododendrons planted in his garden had survived the bombing, and he gently tended these rhododendron as momentums of his lost family. The parts of the rhododendrons exposed to the bombing still show streaky scars, but even now they continue to produce pretty pink flowers when spring arrives.

In 1985, forty years after exposure to the bombing Mr. Ikeda donated the rhododendron to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum (known as the Nagasaki International Culture Hall at the time), where they still grow today. (The photograph was taken in October, but the best time of year to see the rhododendron is April to May.)