Wednesday 11 December 2013

A really wonderful image of Meconopsis bella. The name says it all as it is exquisitely beautiful and really quite large. It can be pink or pale blue with all flowering stems scaopose and this image is quite typical of it in a rock crevice. This was photographed recently on an expedition to Arunchal Pradesh by Jeannie Jones. A slight downside to looking for plants in many of the Himalayan Meconopsis sites is that they tend to flower in the rainy season! Seed used to be available of this species from an Indian seed company and I tried it a number of times. The seedlings are minute even at two years and go dormant for the winter. I did just succeed in flowering it one year at 4 years old and my children at that time were somewhat underwhelmed by the rather small and insignificant flower that fleetingly appeared after all the fuss I had made over it as it gradually got a little bigger!