Saturday 15 February 2014

                                    MECONOPSIS LUDLOWII

These four pictures were taken by Margaret and David Thorne in Arunachal Pradesh last summer. Clearly a very lovely dwarf plant with deep blue stamens and what looks like a yellow stigma but maybe the stigma is coloured and it is covered with yellow pollen. There is a very distintive leaf. This is some ways a mysterious plant and found by earlier European explorers but was first properly recorded  by the great team of Ludlow and Sherriff  on the ORKA LA on 10th June 1934 and also later on the MILAKATONG LA and elsewhere. Seed was collected as Meconopsis lancifolia concinna.   Currently Dr. Grey-Wilson is going to describe it as a new species called Meconopsis ludlowii


All this information has been passed to me by David and Margaret Thorne and any mistakes are mine. 

Rather unusual foliage  with seemingly two leaf types with later leaves partially pinnate.

Clearly a highly desirable plant if ever seed could  be collected