Three new developments. Paul Egan has described 2 new species from Nepal. Meconopsis autumnalis and M. manasluensis ( Papaveraceae ) two new species of Himalayan poppies endemic to Central Nepal with sympatric congeners.
The link is http://www.mapress.com/phytotaxa/content/2011/f/pt00020p056.pdf
Details and images in time on the New Species Pages. Good colour illustrations in the paper.
Yoshida, Sun and Boufford have descibed 2 new species from the Mianning Xian region of Sichuan. These are Meconopsis pulchella, a relative of M. impedita and differing in a number of characteristics and M. heterandera which is very similar to M. rudis and M. racemosa but differs in having unique inflated and inwardly curved inner filamants that are inwardly curved. This is different from the unique filaments in M. henricii and M. sinomaculata. These are well illustrated in the paper which is available online in Acta Botanica Yunnanica 2010 32(6) 503 - 507. There are good colour illustrations
Finally Chris Grey-Wilson ( and a good general cultural section for all big blue poppies with John Mitchell of the RBGE ) has written in SIBBALDIA 8 ( available on-line ) an account Meconopsis Grandis - The True Himalayan Blue Poppy. This splits M. grandis into 3 new sub-species, M.g. orientalis ( N and NE ( Bhutan, NW Arunachal Pradesh and in the Cho La and Po La in Tibet )) This is the one we are most familiar with in gardens and includes L and S 600 and Betty's Dream Poppy, M. g. grandis East Nepal - Barun Khola and S and E of Everest as well as the Jongri region of Sikkim. M. g. jumlaensis is a small plant - well isolated from the other subspecies in west Nepal at Ghurchi Lagna in Jumla. These will be added in time to the Meconopsis grandis page but the paper is very well illustrated with good colour images.
