Beyond Beauty: Hunting the Wild Blue Poppy

By Bill Terry

Beyond Beauty is the story of a remarkable journey that Bill Terry and his wife, Rosemary, undertook when they joined a party of Dutch and British alpine plant hunters intent on botanizing on the roof of the world. The expedition travelled in a convoy of eight jeeps over roads that were rarely paved and occasionally terrifying. They crossed fifteen passes, some as high as 5,000 metres (16,500 feet), where even in midsummer, the wind scoured exposed skin.

They braved days at high altitude, panting in the thin air of the Tibetan plateau, and were rewarded with collages of rock, moss, lichen, flower, and foliage so sublime they might be imagined as "perfect gardens," though no gardener or landscape architect had a hand in their creation.

As the journey unfolds, Terry sketches the history of the region and observes life for Tibetans under direct Chinese rule and the ever-alert People's Liberation Army. He reflects on the potential threat of a massive hydroelectric development to the wellbeing of the millions of people living downstream in Southeast Asia. Terry also contrasts the hardships suffered and dangers faced by pioneer plant hunters a century ago with the relative comfort and safety of modern travel in these remote and exotic lands.

Throughout the book, the author's distinctive photography portrays local custom and culture and celebrates the wildflowers in all their profusion, especially the almost heartbreaking beauty of the Asiatic Poppies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Touchwood Editions
• Release date: Sep 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781927129371

Bill Terry

Bill Terry is a retired CBC executive. He is the author of Blue Heaven: Encounters with the Blue Poppy and Beyond Beauty: Hunting the Wild Blue Poppy. His calendar, Poppies from the Roof of the World, also features this rare and beautiful plant. Since 1994, he has lived on BC's Sunshine Coast with his wife, pursuing a lifelong ambition to create the perfect garden. His collection of Asiatic Poppies is the most diverse in North America. Please visit meconopsis.ca.

Book preview

BEYOND BEAUTY

HUNTING THE WILD BLUE POPPY

       

BILL TERRY

For Rosemary

There is something more bold and masterly in the rough, careless strokes of nature, than in the nice touches and embellishments of art . . . yet we find the works of nature still more pleasant, the more they resemble those of art.

—Joseph Addison, 1712 1

CONTENTS

MAP

ONE: The Plant People

TWO: The Lampshade Poppy

THREE: The Purple Poppy

FOUR: The Horrid Poppy

FIVE: The Three Rivers

SIX: The Tibetan Plateau

SEVEN: The Cambridge Blue Poppy

EIGHT: Sir David Prain’s Poppy

NINE: China’s Tibet

TEN: Major Bailey’s Poppy

Endnotes

Index

Acknowledgments

The road we travelled from Chengdu to Lhasa.

ONE

The Plant People

At Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, it was easy to spot the plant hunters among the passengers gathering for the overnight flight to Chengdu. Function over fashion was the rule. Plant people wear sensible clothes: insulated outer layers over inner layers of breathable, organic cotton; khaki vests or jackets with hidden pockets, protected by Velcro or zippers, or both. Some of the dozen or more pockets are so cunningly concealed that even the wearer may never discover them. There are pockets for passport, permits, maps, seeds, cell phone, GPS tracking device, compass, penknife, tickets, glasses, wallet, notebook, pen. Some of us wore pants that zip off at the knee, convertible clothing for variable weather. To save limited space in checked baggage (no more than 20 kilograms in soft bags or packs, please), we were all wearing our trekking boots—tough, flexible footwear, a fraction of the weight of the lace-up, knee-high, cowhide boots worn by the plant hunters of a century ago.

One elderly Scot wore shorts with long, green, woollen socks that showed off gnarly knees and calves remarkably well muscled for a man in his seventies. He, like most of this party, had probably hiked halfway round the world in pursuit of plants, slogging through mud and marsh, scrambling across scree, tearing through thorny scrub . . . well, this is getting a tad fanciful. In fact, most of his exploration had probably been by mini-bus or (as on this expedition) jeep.

Rena and Harry.

All wore complexions inscribed with the memory of an outdoor life, of routine exposure to sun and wind, heat and cold. Weather-beaten, one might say, although plant people, especially alpine plant people, are never beaten by any kind of weather.

A rather striking, dark-haired English woman, some years younger than the average, alone defied the rule, managing with casual flair to combine both fashion and function, as we would see her continue to do even on the rain- and wind-swept, bitterly cold high passes of Tibet. She was dressed in tastefully coordinated grey and black: well-fitted Gore-Tex pants, fastened to the top of her boots with smart black gaiters, a weatherproof jacket worn unzipped over a grey sweater, with a loosely knitted grey scarf flung over her shoulder. She had blacked out all the logos with a permanent marker. Like the other women, she carried a small daypack rather than a purse. These packs were already weighty with the high-end digital photographic equipment we were all bringing: single lens reflex cameras, a selection of lenses and filters, spare batteries or rechargers, memory cards, binoculars: all essential stuff that, if lost, would ruin this plant safari. Some plant people brought lightweight laptop computers for the daily transfer of images, and to assist in plant identification.

In all, we were twenty-three, led by Harry Jans (a Dutch alpine specialist) and John Mitchell (supervisor of alpine plants at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh), both in their late forties, young enough to be the children of half the party. Nine, including me, were over seventy, a fine age to be undertaking what the Lonely Planet Guide to Western China describes as a journey requiring super-human endurance. We were bent on travelling overland by jeep from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, a distance of 2,500 kilometres. (Such is the lure of plant hunting on the roof of the world.)

I was acquainted with the Blue Poppy in gardens. I wanted to see it in the wild.

We excitedly discussed the sights we hoped to see, and the treasures we hoped to find. Other than my wife, Rosemary, and myself, all of the plant people were veterans of botanical exploration. It’s the only travel they know, though none had undertaken a tour as ambitious as this. They exchanged stories of past expeditions to Bhutan, Yunnan, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan—wherever rare and sought-after alpine plants can be found.

Many knew one another, having shared earlier experiences, and warmly greeted old friends. Several had led wilderness plant-hunting trips. All these plant people were specialists in alpine flora and members of Britain’s Alpine Garden Society (AGS), the world’s oldest and most prestigious such organization. For everyone, this was the adventure of a lifetime.

Rosemary and I were the only North Americans. Our companions for the next twenty-four days included two Australians, six Dutch, two Scots, and eleven English. In all, eight women and fifteen men. Four of the women were married to four of the men. Most of the others, whether men or women, had left partners at home, partners who did not share the plant-hunting obsession and did not wish to share the associated discomfort. We two were the only participants who were strangers to all (we had briefly met Harry), were not members of AGS, and usually travelled for reasons other than plant hunting. Furthermore, as we set out, what I didn’t know about alpines could have been written on the head of a sperm whale—with the exception of my particular passion: the Asiatic poppies, Meconopsis.

That is why I was there, in the departure lounge at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. I had a date to meet the Blue Poppy in Tibet.

       

We landed at Chengdu airport in mid-morning but were not allowed to leave our seats until we’d filled out forms attesting we’d not been in contact with any person with fever, cough, cold, or any other affliction for the last five days, and that we ourselves were free of all such symptoms. The fear was that Westerners would be importing the dreaded Mexican swine ’flu, the H1N1 virus, the pandemic of that summer. The man across the aisle, who sneezed and coughed savagely during much of the flight, no doubt confirmed that, like the rest of us, he was in the pink of condition; he too was allowed to set foot on Chinese soil after masked, white-coated health inspectors had taken the temperature of everyone on board, by pointing a meat thermometer at each passenger’s head and reading the result on a hand-held meter.

Outside the terminal, in the hot sunshine, much of that sensible clothing was peeled off and we carried our bags to a line of jeeps, numbered one to eight and parked in that order. We were introduced to eight drivers, a mechanic, and two young Chinese women, Carolyn and Rena, 1 who would be our interpreters and guides in the coming weeks, steering us through the labyrinth of Chinese officialdom, organizing meals and hotels, and sorting out all the particular needs of particular plant people. They were invaluable, remarkable for their grace under pressure.

Jet-lagged, travel-weary, and grubby, we would have welcomed a relaxed afternoon in a cool hotel room in Chengdu, a shower, a tall, iced drink with a sprig of mint, a change of clothes, a night’s sleep. But that was not the plan. The relentless pace of this venture was set from the start. Lhasa, here we come.

The Leshan Giant Buddha.

Jeep number one was reserved for our leaders, Harry and John, and Carolyn. Rena rode in number eight. The rest of us sorted ourselves into groups of three. And shortly, a procession of eight jeeps bearing thirty-five people, with baggage and cameras and guidebooks and bottled water and several changes of very sensible clothing, wheeled away from the airport and, in strict numerical order, headed west toward the city of Leshan. It was a two-hour drive on a four-lane highway, the best by Chinese standards but bumpy enough to give us a relatively gentle introduction to the coming rigours of jeep riding.

It was worth it. Leshan (happy mountain) is the home of the world’s largest carved Buddha and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is not merely a Ripley’s-believe-it-or-not wonder, but a serene and deeply inspiring seated figure, contemplating with an enigmatic smile the confluence of three rivers far below. Construction began in the eighth century, in the hope of placating a water spirit held responsible for capsized fishing boats and many deaths by drowning in the shifting currents and whirlpools where the rivers met. The Buddha was carved out of the red sandstone hillside and took ninety years to complete. Seated, it is seventy-one metres high. (Were it standing, the giant would be more than a hundred metres tall.) And it did the trick, or so they say, because so much rock fell into the maelstrom that the waters were calmed. Besides, after enduring ninety years of bombardment, the water spirit may have slipped away in search of a more peaceful home.

The entire figure can be seen from the river. The hands rest on its knees, three-metre fingers splayed. It’s also possible to stand on a platform just below the immense flat feet, each the size of a tennis court. However, getting to this viewpoint requires climbing down a steep stone stairway cut into the adjacent cliff and then climbing back up. As it was, after trudging, hot and weary, from the parking area up some two hundred red sandstone steps, we were all too exhausted to give such an exploit a moment’s thought. It was enough to reach a terrace, level with the Buddha’s eyes, where we had a very fine view of the head in profile, with its seven-metre-long ears and nose spanning five metres from its sharp tip to the red dot between the eyebrows. We saluted the inspired generations of stonemasons, suspended on flimsy scaffolding, who created this astonishing monument out of solid rock twelve centuries ago. And then we walked back down to the jeeps the way we had climbed up.

       

Leshan to Moxi is a long day’s drive, with a modest change in altitude, from near sea level to 1,600 metres. We drove through Ya’an, a centre of tea growing and the place where the first giant panda was discovered. Ya’an is now the home of the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Centre. But plant hunting, not panda watching,