Establishing and Maintaining Monocarpic Meconopsis in Livingi Collections

Abstract

While the large blue-flowered Meconopsis (such as M. betonicifolia) are popular now, it was the large monocarpic species that attracted most attention up until the 1970’s. The reasons for the latter’s fall from popularity include the fact that they have to be raised from seed each year, the lack of authenticated material, hybridisation in cultivation, climate change and fashion. Ease of hybridisation in cultivation means that it is difficult to maintain authenticated, wildsource material in cultivation and this limits research potential. In this paper the 14 species of subsection Eupolychaetia are briefly described, followed by discussions on building a collection and collecting seeds in the wild. A short description on seed propagation and storage concludes the paper.