The Meconopsis Group - Classification (Add)

Classification

How many different Meconopsis are there? The answer to that keeps changing: new species are discovered, and botanical study can lead to new variants being described for species that are already known, or others may be combined under a single name. At the beginning of 2022 there were 94 species of Meconopsis, of which 24 have 56 subtaxa (subspecies, variety or forma), so there are 126 distinct taxa altogether. Classification and names are essential for communication, and therefore for conservation, but plant taxonomy, the classification and naming of plants, is an attempt to impose order onto the complex natural variation that exists in the wild. There is no single “correct” answer and botanists are humans – so they don’t always agree!	Navigating the table Sorting. Click on one of the buttons just above the table. Sort by Species puts the whole list into alphabetical order, and Sort by Sections and Series groups the species within these categories within the genus. Clicking on a column heading also sorts. Filtering. You can select records from the table by typing a name or part of one in one of the boxes in the Filter row and then clicking the Filter button. Clicking the Clear button restores the whole list. Rapid search. Select All from the drop-down list for Rows per page (at the top of the table). Then start typing in the adjacent Rapid search box. After entering two letters the table immediately reduces to names containing those letters together. Add or remove letters and the list adjusts. It is a great way to find what you are looking for. Try typing gr, changing it to gra, then gran, back to gra, then grac.
The Meconopsis Group has a responsibility to present up-to-date information to the public in a clear way. So on this web page there is a table of the currently accepted species. The basis of this list is The Genus Meconopsis by Christopher Grey-Wilson, published by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 2014, ISBN 978-1-81246-369-7. We also list sub-specific taxa, i.e. subspecies, variety or forma. Where possible, plants should be identified as precisely as possible, but if only the species is known, that is still valuable. In our species gallery we show photos of sub-specific taxa where we can, to help with identification. Since the publication of Grey-Wilson’s book there have been changes, with new species, subspecies and varieties described. All this information, for all plants, not just Meconopsis, is being collated by World Flora Online. They have supported a new classification for groups of species within the genus Meconopsis, i.e. sections (replacing subgenera and sections) and The Meconopsis Group has proposed series within the sections. These sections and series are included in the classification table on this page. The background to the classification within the genus is described on our World Flora Online web page. The Meconopsis Group aims to keep an up-to-date list of names here. New publications are included if we believe that they have been correctly published. If we do not think that published revisions have a sound scientific basis, we do not include them here. After our proposals have been accepted or rejected by World Flora Online we update this list. The Export as Excel File button allows you to download a file containing the names of all Meconopsis species and their subspecies etc, all correctly formatted. It also includes the names in html code, in case you want to use them in web pages. Opening the downloaded Excel file gives a warning about the file format. This is because the file includes embedded formatting information; you are safe to open it. Clicking the More button at the end of the record for any plant will take you to a new page, with more information about the name of the plant, and a link to a photo gallery page, if there is one yet.

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