Yunnan - Land of the Southern Cloud (5)

love that daphne and isn't that an intense blue iris.
I love seeing plants growing in the wild.

Beautiful Iris & I liked the euphorbias.
A comfortable hotel & better weather must be very welcome too

GF - I think the comfortable hotel was laid on especially to make up for the previous 'primitive' homestay. The weather was much better from now on as well.

Marvellous blog ! I queried Primula Bullyana with Kew
Gardens Science Dept years ago, wondered if it was found
by Mr. Bulley the plant collector.
They sent a nice letter saying Bulleyana is a remote district
of China where the Primula grows.

That put the lid on the 'Fame at last' idea-Diane Bulley.

This must also apply to the Iris.

Diane - I don't know who your contact was in Kew, but I think primula bulleyana was named after Arthur Kilpin Bulley (1861 - 1942), a British cotton merchant and creator of the Ness Botanic Gardens
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Bulley)

Even Kew describe this link:
http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:701653-1

Given that Bulley was sponsoring plant collectors in this area, it's probably a safe bet that iris bulleyana was named after him as well.

Well bless me. I really believed Bullyana is a district of
North west China. Although to be honest I never checked it on maps. Just saw the labelled plants at Kew.
I have copied all this out, and will do more research -
might be easier to tell my eldest son who has worked on family research for the Bulley family. Very clever on IT.

Although, not to pour cold water on the idea, our local
WEA chief has said that there is a lot of wrong information on Wikipaedia !
Be nice to know more about Arthur anyway.

Have passed this onto eldest son, with the degree.
Although I remember going to the Ness Gardens on an
Allotment Association coach trip about 25 years ago.
We were told the house was Arthur Bulley's home.
What a garden to have !

Andrew what wonderful experiences you are having!
Seems almost unbelievable that you can just come across all those beauties growing wild. Agree with SBG about the iris - really lovely.

Eldest son says he did do the research and Arthur Kilpin Bulley was no relation to our branch.
Wonderful holiday , thank you for sharing.

Really enjoying your epic journey Andrew.....

An epic journey, glad the weather was better at higher altitude allowing you see those specie plants.

me again ,,,,,who was roxburghii ?

Dianne, William Roxburgh , Scottish physician and botanist who was director of the botanical garden of Calcutta.

Thank you GF what a marvellous job he must have had !
Did some plant collecting too, he must have taken soil samples with each plant to grow his finds on at the Botanical Garden. The soil must have varied in every region he visited.

Diane - not all plants are named after the men who collected them. Some would be named after those who sponsored the expedition - Bulley is an example.

Another very interesting blog, I'm not liking the look of their modern day Shangri-La, though its only seen in the dark, one of my all time favourite movies Andrew and I quite like the thought of a magical, peaceful place hidden away somewhere, lol....

Thank you for that gem of information Andrew.