Reply #3: Will it make you feel better [View All]

to learn that the tree poppy is named in honour of the flower-loving Irish astronomer Thomas Romney Robinson (1792-1882) and the Irish botanist Thomas Coulter (1793-1843)?

The connection is that Coulter brought the plant from California (where it is native; it also grows wild near Las Vegas) and gave it to his friend Romney Robinson, in whose garden near Dublin it is said to have bloomed for the first time in Europe. if I remember right, this was in 1829. Theirs was quite an achievement, as not only is Romneya coulteri notoriously difficult to transplant -- let alone half-way across the world -- but it is not easy to grow in the Irish climate. It is an extremely beautiful plant.