This talk and all our lectures are FREE for Friends of the Botanical Gardens to attend. Members of the public are also welcome to join us on payment of £5 at the door on the day. Live talks are held in the Education Centre in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens - easily accessed via the Thompson Road Entrance.

We live in a wonderful time for studying plants. Travel is easy, both flying and overland. The internet gives access to herbarium specimens scanned in high resolution; to vast number of digital photographs; to documents, including explorers' records and maps, ancient and modern. We can analyse DNA. And we are able to observe cultivated plants throughout the year.

In this talk, Professor David Rankin will use this wealth of information to help understand the wonderful yellow Meconopsis - not all Himalayan blue poppies are blue! Relationships between different kinds emerge, and sometimes names have to change……

David Rankin was a professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, but since retirement he has worked with plants. He was co-owner, with his wife Stella, of Kevock Garden Plants, and since that passed to new owners they have continued to help the nursery, particularly with shows, including Harrogate and Chelsea. They also consult on planting, in particular with the renovation of historic rock gardens; and they can still walk, so they enjoy expeditions to mountains around the world. He also continues scientific work, but now in botany instead of chemistry. Primula and Meconopsis are his favourite plants.