Thursday 10 March 2005

Meconopsis superba - Photos In The Wild

Photographed in Bhutan by Margaret Thorne on open scree at Ha in Bhutan at about 4,100 metres. Plant just below scree level in Bhutan. As in gardens a large robust plant with large crystalline white flowers and an almost black purple stigma and also as in gardens a more modest number of flowering pedicels per plant than some of the related species like M. paniculata.  Margaret Thorne.
Another image by Margaret Thorne near to the previous images. The strategy of these monocarpic evergreen plants in this hostile high altitude habitat is typical of this species growing for years as a flat rosette which would not be troubled by high winds or deep snow cover and only flowers after a very rapid expension of the flowering stem in a single early spring and then the dried dead stem with seeds may even be helped by winter winds to disperse the large seed in robust seed pods.