M. 'Bobby Masterton' (Infertile Blue Group)
A cultivar of garden origin, most probably a hybrid of M. grandis subsp. grandis and M. baileyi.
MG Rating: ★★★★   Awards: PC (2008), AGM (2013)
Named by: The Meconopsis Group, 2002. Registered by: The Meconopsis Group, 2002.
Flowering: May-June. Nodding, sky blue flowers. The petals are broadly overlapping with slightly erose margins.
Emerging foliage: The emerging elliptic leaves are firm and up-reaching. They are intensely suffused with a purple-red pigmentation on both surfaces (more prominently on their lower surface) and they are also covered with straw coloured hairs.
Mature foliage: The elliptic basal leaves have a prominent pale mid-rib and long petioles. The margins of the mature leaf blades are shallowly toothed with many serrate-dentate teeth. The leaf base is attenuate and the apex sub-acute to sub-obtuse.
Fruit capsule: Narrowly ellipsoid, covered with short straw-coloured bristles except on the sutures. Long slender style. Sterile.
Etymology: Plants of this cultivar were submitted to The Meconopsis Group naming trial by a number of donors, many of these being labelled as forms of M. × sheldonii. The cultivar was given its name in recognition of Bobby Masterton who created the Cluny House Garden in Perthshire.