Papaver rhoeas

Papaver rhoeas
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
Order:	Ranunculales
Family:	Papaveraceae
Genus:	Papaver
Species:	P. rhoeas
Binomial name
Papaver rhoeas L.

Papaver rhoeas (common names include common poppy,corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy or red poppy) is an annual herbaceous species of flowering plant in the poppy family, Papaveraceae. This poppy is notable as an agricultural weed (hence the common names including "corn" and "field") and after World War I as a symbol of dead soldiers.

Before the advent of herbicides, P. rhoeas sometimes was so abundant in agricultural fields that it could be mistaken for a crop. However, the only species of Papaveraceae grown as a field crop on a large scale is Papaver somniferum, the opium poppy.

Papaver rhoeas is a variable, erect annual, forming a long-lived soil seed bank that can germinate when the soil is disturbed. In the northern hemisphere it generally flowers in late spring, but if the weather is warm enough other flowers frequently appear at the beginning of autumn. It grows up to about 70 cm in height. The flowers are large and showy, 50 to 100mm across, with four petals that are vivid red, most commonly with a black spot at their base. The flower stem is usually covered with coarse hairs that are held at right angles to the surface, helping to distinguish it from Papaver dubium in which the hairs are more usually appressed (i.e. held close to the stem). The capsules are hairless, obovoid (egg-shaped), less than twice as tall as they are wide, with a stigma at least as wide as the capsule. Like many other species of Papaver, the plant exudes white to yellowish latex when the tissues are broken.

It was formerly described by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in his seminal publication Species Plantarum in 1753. Papaver, also ‘pappa’, is the Latin word for food or milk and 'rhoeas' means red in Greek.

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Wikipedia