Plant Story--Common Poppies, Corn Poppies, Flanders Poppies, Papaver rhoeas

 Poppies are cheerful flowers of middle and late spring. 

common poppies, Papaver rhoeas

Poppies include the species in the genus Papaver, in the poppy family, Papaveraceae.  You might call these true poppies. Lots of plants in the poppy family, in other genera, are also called poppies, for example the Himalayan blue poppy. Meconopsis betonicifolia, and the Calilfornia poppy, Eschscholzia californica.

Hymalayan blue poppy Meconopsis betonicifolia

The genus Papaver is itself large, with at least 68 species, despite recent work that has reduced the number of species. The Icelandic poppy, Papaver nudicaule, is among those now in a different genus, Oreomecon nudicaulis. although many websites have not yet noticed this change. The opium poppy (Papaver somnifera) remains in the genus Papaver, but I am going to write mainly about the poppy called the common poppy, Papaver rhoeas.

Papaver, the scientific name was its name in Rome; the species epithet rhoeas means "red." It has dozens of common names, from common poppy to corn poppy, field poppy, corn rose, headache, red poppy, blind buff, thunderflower, lightnings, and more.

The common poppy is native to Europe and North Africa. There it is a common plant of disturbed sites, painting them a brilliant red when it flowers in late spring.

Americans know it better as the Flanders poppy. It is the subject of the well-known poem In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row

    That mark our place; and in the sky

     The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow

      Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from falling hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

     If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

     In Flanders fields. 

(from poetryfoundation.org)

After the great battles of Europe (both the Napoleanic Wars and World Wars), the common poppy bloomed in profusion on the battlefields and on the disturbed earth of the new graveyards, one of the few plants that could tolerate the rather toxic soils left behind by the armies.

Canadian physician John McCrae (1872-1918) wrote In Flanders Fields in 1915 and published it later that year. The poem was a hit, reprinted and loved world wide. 

The poppy as a symbol of remembrance, however, did not happen spontaneously in response to the poem. An American professor, Moina Michael (1869-1944), strongly promoted the poppy as a symbol to remember soldiers who had died in the war and in 1918 convinced the American Legion to use it as a symbol. Michael handed out silk poppies; real common poppies were readily recognized but for most of the year, not available. Her work inspired Anna Guérin (1878-1961) to sell (silk) poppies in her native France to raise money for orphans of the war. She subsequently took her project to England, Australia,and other countries. The custom of wearing a poppy in remembrance remains strong for ANZAC Day (April 25) in Australia and New Zealand, Remembrance Day (Nov. 11) in England and Canada and Memorial Day (late May) in the United States, to name a few. 

a field of common poppies at Wildseed Farms, Texas

Common poppies are annuals and were crop weeds. One of their common names is corn poppy, used by the USDA for example. Corn was the general word for grain crops, wheat, rye, barley, etc. in England and corn poppy is saying "weed of the corn." In fact, common poppies probably were spread around Europe and western Asia as crop weeds, hidden in traded seed. In the British Isles, they are pretty much confined to the margins of cropland and believed to have been a Bronze Age (5500-2500 BP) introduction to the islands. Changes in land use (less small-farming) and herbicides have reduced them to rare in many places, though across their broad range they are still quite common and they have escaped all across the world. The USDA plants data base shows them as naturalized in half of the U.S. states and Canadian provinces.

All the members of the poppy family contain some toxic or narcotic alkaloids, often opiods. Common poppy is toxic as well, in particular it contains rhoeadine and rhoeagenine, but no opium or morphine. Close up, it has an  unpleasant smell and is unpalatable to livestock. It is poisonous in moderate amounts; humans occassionally poison themselves by eating it (link). The toxins protect it from being eaten by animals. 

Europeans used the common poppies as treatment for pain, especially toothache and earache, and as an ingredient in cough syrups and eye washes. For centuries it was added to food, to help children sleep.  It is a mild analgesic, with sedative, and expectorant properties, and counters the crystallization of struvite  that causes kidney stones. Modern sources point to the dangers of too high a dose and recommend using it under professional supervision, if at all. 

common poppy in the grass

Common poppies have a rich folklore. Mostly today people recognize them as signs of remembrance for fallen soldiers. However, historically in Europe they were thought to be dangerous to touch and should not be picked. Staring too long into the flower caused headaches and in the worst cases, blindness. Picking common poppies would bring on thunder stoms. Conversely, if the poppies were unpicked, no severe downpour would flatten the crop. This protection extended into placing or growing poppies on the roof to ward off lightning. 

It was unlucky to bring poppies indoors because illness would follow. In Irish the name translate's as witch's flower ('red hag') and in Welsh as 'goblin's eye.' In Cornwall handling corn poppies was belived to cause warts. 

Writers speculate that the danger folklore either protected children from playing with or eating this toxic plant or that it kept people from going into the corn field to pick the pretty flowers and in the process, trampling the crop.

Red poppies meant blood, new life, and growth in ancient Assyria and Egypt. They were the flower of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, beauty and reproduction. The Romans dedicated them to Ceres, goddess of agriculture and the harvest, and decorated her statues and festivals with common poppies braided with wheat and barley. According to the legend, Ceres, distraught with the loss of her daughter Persephone to the underworld, could not sleep. Consequently crops did not grow. Somnus, god of sleep, gave her poppies and she slept. Waking, her strength returned and she tended crops, saving humans from starvation. 

Poppy seeds represented fertility to the Greeks and Romans and were offerings for a successful harvest. The seeds, crushed, form a useful oil, still important in central Europe.

The beautiful red petals will make a gorgeous dye bath, but the color on the cloth soon fades. A syrup of the red petals was used to redden ink, however. Europeans color foods with the petals. 

Common poppies are handsome annual plants which, under conditions they like (rich soil, ample water, sun), will reseed. Enjoy the bright red flowers but don't stare into one too long. 

Comments and corrections welcome.

( I have tried to report the folklore of common poppies not opium poppies. Common poppies have red flowers, are native across southern Europe, North Africa, and western Asia, and have moved pretty much everywhere with grain fields; opium poppies (Papaver somniferum) are from more or less the same area, their origins equally confused. They have flowers of many colors, including red, and are not described as crop weeds. Opium poppies grow taller than common poppies and have clasping leaves. Opium poppies's alkaloids were a major gift to medicine; common poppies are just slightly medicinal wildflowers. Generally common poppies are red poppies and opium poppies are described as white to purple. Today of course, you can buy common poppies in a wide array of colors, though red predominates.)

References

Author?. Date. Madame Guérin. Who Put the Poppy on Your Lapel? Wordpress.com link (Accessed 5/24/26)

Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. Papaver rhoeas L., common poppy. link (Accessed 5/25/26)

Grieve, M. 1971. A Modern Herbal. Originally 1931. Dover Reprint. Dover Publications. New York. online: link

Günaydin, Y. K., Z. D. Dündar, B. Çekmen, N. B. Akilli, R. Köylü and B. Cander. 2015. Intoxication due to Papaver rhoeas (Corn Poppy): Five Case Reports. Case Rep Med. doi 10.1155/2015/321360 link (Accessed 5/25/26)

Hmampi, A., El-Assri, E-M., El Khousi, M., M. Kara, S. Z. Alshawwa, O. El Kamaly, F. E. El ourmari, N. Eloutassi and A. Lahkimi. 2023. Papaver rhoeas L. stem and flower extracts: anti-struvite, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antidepressant activities. Saudi Pharm. J. 31(18):101656. 10.1016/j.jsps.2023.06.019 link (Accessed 5/25/26)

History Detective. The Poppy Ladies. link  Accessed 5/24/2026)

Kew Gardens. Oreomecon nudicaule. Plants of the World Online. Kew Gardens. link (Accessed 5/24/2026)

McCrae, J. 1915. In Flanders Fields. online at poetryfoundation.org link (Accessed 5/24/2026)

Mac Coitir, N. 2015. Ireland's Wild Plants. Myths, Legentds and Folklore. The Collins Press. Cork, Ireland. 

Vickery, R. 1995. Oxford Dictionary of Plant-Lore. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Kathy Keeler, A Wandering Botanist 
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