Meconopsis horridula

Habit

Herb

Family Description

Annual, biennial or perennial herbs with milky juice (latex); indumentum of simple, barbellate or stellate hairs. Leaves mostly basal in a rosette, simple, pinnatifid or pinnatisect, rarely palmately lobed, exstipulate, stem leaves usually few, alternate. Flowers on leafless scapes or in leafy racemes or panicles, actinomorphic, hermaphrodite, nodding in bud, showy. Sepals 2-3, caducous. Petals 4-8, free, biseriate, imbricate, often crumpled at first. Stamens numerous, free. Ovary superior, 1-celled or apparently 2-10-celled by intrusive placentae; ovules numerous, placentation parietal; stigmas usually connate, capitate on distinct style, rarely free or sessile on ovary or lobed disc. Fruit a capsule dehiscing by 2-10 pores or valves; seeds numerous.

Genus Description

Biennial or perennial, monocarpic or polycarpic herbs with yellow juice and stout rootstock, bearing erect scapes or stems, indumentum often of barbellate bristles or hairs. Leaves mostly basal in a rosette, simple or pinnatifid, sometimes pinnatisect, elliptic, oblong or laneolate, rarely ovate; stem leaves several or none. Flowers solitary on leafless scapes, or on simple or branched leafly stems, or in lateral cymes on stout stems. Sepals 2, ovate or elliptic, falling early. Petal showy, mostly 4, sometimes up to 10 (often more numerous in terminal flowers), obovate or suborbicular. Ovary ellipsoid or cylindric, often bristly, rarely with apical disc; style conspicuous, elongate, stigmas united., rarely free. Capsule cylindric to subglosbose, 4-10-valved, dehiscing by small subapical pores or longer slits in upper third to leaves persistent placentae attached to style.

Species description

Monocarpic herb with long slender tap root, stems 15-30m (-80)cm, with dense, pale, spreading prickles throughout. Leaves mostly basal, rosetted, oblanceolate, 5-12 x 1-3cm, obtuse or subacute, base long attenuate, margins entire or shallowly crenately lobed near apex; petioles 2-6cm; stem leaves absent or a few near stem base. Flowers 3-10 on pedicels 2-10cm borne in a raceme on stout erect stem, often surrounded by 3-15 single-flowered leafless scapes 5-20cm arising from basal rosette or sometimes only single-flowered scapes present. Petal 4-8, usually blue, 2.5-3.5cm, Ovary ellipsoid, densely prickly, bearing elongate style. Capsules broadly ellipsoid, 1.5 x 1cm, prickly, 5-6-valved, dehiscing only near apex.