So Blue, Blue, Blue! Meconopsis betonicifolia, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, England
There's a portrait of Gordon of Khartoum (1833-1885) (= Charles George Gordon) with astoundingly blue eyes; the artist is Lady Julia Abercromby (1840-1914). Gordon was killed and beheaded by the Mahdi (1844-1885) in the seige of Khartoum, the Sudan, (1885), but he was also called 'Chinese Gordon'; and the color of these beautiful flowers reminded me of him.
First described by a westerner in 1886 - Père Pierre Jean Marie Delavay (1834-1895), a French missionary to Yunnan in China and Tibet - this flower was dry-pressed by Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Marshman Bailey (1882-1967) in 1922 and it soon set tongues a-wagging in Europe. Bailey was one of those undaunting Englishmen in the style of Gordon: soldier, adventurer, explorer and spy. Fluent in Tibetan and in Urdu - he was born in Lahore into a military family and was trained at Sandhurst in England - he was the last survivor of 'The Great Game' , the struggle between the Russian Czar and the British Empire for hegemony in the Himalayas. Apparently he had an eye, too, for natural beauty and thus for the plants of these remote regions.
Viable seed, however, was collected only in 1924 by Frank Kingdom-Ward (1885-1958). From this seed sprang the first blue poppies in England in 1927, soon to conquer the hearts of many. An incurable romantic - and who will disparage Kingman-Ward after looking at this picture? - he gave one of his books the title "Land of the Blue Poppy" (1913). In it he describes his adventures as a naturalist travelling in Eastern Tibet. It would seem that this blue does not go very well with the Chinese Red of today.
This photo was taken in the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, near London, England, on a slightly overcast day. The Greco-Latin name means something like "looking like a poppy but with purple/blue petals". In English it is usually called Himalaya Blue Poppy.
So Blue, Blue, Blue! Meconopsis betonicifolia, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, England
There's a portrait of Gordon of Khartoum (1833-1885) (= Charles George Gordon) with astoundingly blue eyes; the artist is Lady Julia Abercromby (1840-1914). Gordon was killed and beheaded by the Mahdi (1844-1885) in the seige of Khartoum, the Sudan, (1885), but he was also called 'Chinese Gordon'; and the color of these beautiful flowers reminded me of him.
First described by a westerner in 1886 - Père Pierre Jean Marie Delavay (1834-1895), a French missionary to Yunnan in China and Tibet - this flower was dry-pressed by Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Marshman Bailey (1882-1967) in 1922 and it soon set tongues a-wagging in Europe. Bailey was one of those undaunting Englishmen in the style of Gordon: soldier, adventurer, explorer and spy. Fluent in Tibetan and in Urdu - he was born in Lahore into a military family and was trained at Sandhurst in England - he was the last survivor of 'The Great Game' , the struggle between the Russian Czar and the British Empire for hegemony in the Himalayas. Apparently he had an eye, too, for natural beauty and thus for the plants of these remote regions.
Viable seed, however, was collected only in 1924 by Frank Kingdom-Ward (1885-1958). From this seed sprang the first blue poppies in England in 1927, soon to conquer the hearts of many. An incurable romantic - and who will disparage Kingman-Ward after looking at this picture? - he gave one of his books the title "Land of the Blue Poppy" (1913). In it he describes his adventures as a naturalist travelling in Eastern Tibet. It would seem that this blue does not go very well with the Chinese Red of today.
This photo was taken in the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, near London, England, on a slightly overcast day. The Greco-Latin name means something like "looking like a poppy but with purple/blue petals". In English it is usually called Himalaya Blue Poppy.