Blue Poppies have been a prized rarity for nearly a century…
…ever since legendary mountaineer George Leigh Mallory collected specimens from the slopes of Mt. Everest back in 1922.
To the best of my knowledge, not one person of power has ever named a flower after Mr. Mallory, nor has he ever been awarded a CBE, MBE, Knighthood or Baronetcy, and he’s never been named a peer of the realm, a fact that kind of —no, not even kind of, but genuinely— shocked me.
George Mallory died on the slopes of Mt. Everest, during his second attempt to conquer its heights, in 1924. I don’t think he ever elicited a scandal in the pages of the Weekly Word News, nor did he support the Nazi Party as did the popular Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
As far as I know, George Leigh Mallory did nothing more controversial than attempt to plant a Union Jack on the summit of Everest, which in fact he may have done, his frozen and mummified remains having been discovered around 1936, and again in 1999.
So I am naming every Himalayan Poppy that I photograph after George Mallory.
