Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Meconopsis => Topic started by: Philippe on November 01, 2010, 10:27:22 AM
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Hi
I'd just like to ask this question: might it be that a M.napaulensis doesn't set seed at all?
I had it in the garden for a few years ( but just 1 plant). It grew beautiful and very healthily, a wonder, but I just didn't get one seed! So it has gone away without any possibility of renewal.
I somewhere read that the weather should generally be not too dry or warm for the meconopsis to form healthy seed. But that's almost always the case by us, so I don't understand why it went so wrong with the seeds. M.betonicifolia and M.grandis otherwise have no problems by me, but I have several plants of each.
I am at present trying again with some new young plants offered by a friend ( under M.regia, but it already looks more like a paniculata, a napaulensis, or a cross between the both) and wouldn't like to fail another harvest, if possible.
So if you have ideas, they will be welcomed!
Thanks
Philippe
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The big monocarp Meconopsis are very much hybridized and I believe most of those growing in Europe are interspecific hybrids.
Meconopsis are self fertile as a rule but some hybrids are not because the parents have different chromosome numbers.
Several named varieties of the tall blue perennials are sterile for that reason. (In spite of that, seed of these are offered commercially >:( )
I think you will get seed the next time.
Göte
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Thank you for the answer ;)
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As far as I am aware the only regularly self fertile Meconopsis is superba. Single plants of almost all oher species usually do not set seeds. James Cobb
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M. paniculata is self-fertile too, in my experience.
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I bought a single plant of what is now again M baileyi in the sixties and all my baylies are seedlings from that single plant. The alba form as well as the lingholm i got somewhat later also seem self fertile. I have also got seeds on delavayii when only one plant flowered. I am not as sure of aculeata but a number of seedlings has appeared around a single plant.
Göte.