# Poppies....poppies... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 15, 2002, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736 "2002-04-15T14:15:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/1 "2002-04-15T14:15:44Z")
I happened to glance at this news photo [http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/020410/168/1dlpy.html](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/020410/168/1dlpy.html) the other day and it struck me that the poppies in the picture looked remarkably like the poppies (red and white with frilly petals) that I saw in a neighbor’s yard last year. Is there an easy way to tell the difference between an opium poppy and the ornamental kind, just by looking at the plants? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/2 "2002-04-15T14:34:27Z")
There would be, if there was a difference. ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/3 "2002-04-15T14:50:13Z")
**Mangetout** , can you expand on this? I guess I thought that most garden poppies were papaver rhoeas. Is papaver rhoeas so different from papaver somniferum (the opium poppy) that I couldn’t have confused the two? Or are you saying that papaver rhoeas is just as capable of producing opium as papaver somniferum? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/4 "2002-04-15T15:05:42Z")
From the looks of whats available on [eSeeds](http://www.eseeds.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=177562&prmenbr=127&CGRY_NUM=), there are several varieties of papaver somniferum available to the home gardener. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/5 "2002-04-15T15:09:42Z")
You’re right that most ornamental poppies are a different species, but they do look similar. From what I’ve seen, the opium poppy is considerably larger and taller than others. I’ve noticed in newspaper pictures where they show opium poppies being harvested, the plants come up to the workers’ chests; other poppies seem to be only about knee high if that. Growing opium poppies is illegal in the U.S., even if it’s only a few in a garden; nevertheless, a couple of years ago, one of the mainstream gardening magazines had a long article about planting and tending opium poppies, which also can be very beautiful as ornamental plants. Also a DEA official said they probably wouldn’t bother someone who had a few in a home garden, [here](http://www.poppies.org/news/99490958919936.shtml), but one should still remember that they’re illegal to grow. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/6 "2002-04-15T16:00:05Z")
Opium poppies are quite widely grown as ornamentals here in the UK. I would like to grow cannabis ornamentally in my garden (no, really; I have no interest in ‘using’ it), but I think it would be asking for trouble. I suppose ordinary Hemp would be just as attractive. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/7 "2002-04-15T23:16:20Z")
At US [ebay.com](http://ebay.com) has the seeds & legally sold, too. Which I thought was kinda odd. The nice blue raw poppy seeds you can get from a natural food store in the US produce mighty attractive flowers. Even the California poppy has traces of opium,right? ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/8 "2002-04-15T23:42:02Z")
All poppies have traces of morphine in them. The latex they exude contains it. I thought, however, that you could be in posession of germinated poppies, but that if the seed pod is cut, they become illegal. Maybe I have just been smoking crack. Papaver Somniferum was planted all around Washington state in the early part of the 19th century. They tried to destroy them, but every year, there are poppies growing in the wild. ---
**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2002, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/9 "2002-04-15T23:45:59Z")
The _papaver somniferum_ plants have different foliage than the rhoeas poppies (round here we call them shirley poppies), it is almost a blue green, and smoother than the rhoeas foliage. I think it is legal to grow these poppies in the US, but illegal to buy or sell the seeds - go figure. As for California poppies, I don’t think they have any opiates in them, same with the shirley poppies. ---
**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2002, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/10 "2002-04-16T00:14:38Z")
I guess I should point out the link to the article that Cecil wrote on poppies: [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5\_116.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_116.html) in which he states: > [@](#): > > Q: You’re telling me the poppy seeds in baked goods come from the same type of poppy used to make opium? > > A: Maybe not all, but a lot of them do. Of the 90 or so species of poppy, one, Papaver somniferum, is commonly used for two things: drugs and food. In the U.S. possession of opium poppies with intent to grow more is a crime. But possession of opium poppy seed is perfectly legal–in fact, you can (or could) buy opium poppy seeds from gardening catalogs. (But God help you if you try to grow anything with them–see Michael Pollan’s scary article on this subject in the April 1997 Harper’s). So-called bread-seed poppies (P. paeoniflorum) are also legal, though botanically they’re the same as P. somniferum. This does make me wonder: Is America entirely dependent on foreign suppliers for our poppy seeds? Why are we worrying about Iraq cutting off a small percentage of our oil when the threat of a bagel and muffin crisis looms so much larger? 🙂 On a more serious note, does anybody have a link to a picture that shows P. somniferum next to P. rhoeas? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2002, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/11 "2002-04-16T02:56:58Z")
I wish I could find the article/book that I read this in, but there’s a guy by the name of Duke who has done a lot of research for the USDA, and other government agencies on medicinal plants. Anyway, he relates the story of how he was going into some Federal law enforcement building (like the DEA or FBI) to give a lecture on plants that could be used as recreational pharmicuticals and he spotted in the flower garden in front of the place some Papaver Somniferum poppies mixed in with the papaver rhoeas poppies. According to him, the two are pretty close in appearance and its pretty common for them to get planted by ordinary folks. I should point out that he didn’t bother to tell the Feds they had some illegal plants growing right out front. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2002, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/12 "2002-04-16T08:13:29Z")
_Papaver Rhoeas_ is the red poppy that is so common in cornfields - it is very different in appearance from opium poppies. Google is quite good for finding images; try a google search of _Papaver Rhoeas_ and then click the ‘images’ tab. _Papaver paeoniflorum_ is just a synonym for some of the garden varieties of _Somniferum_ IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2002, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/13 "2002-04-16T15:20:32Z")
“I think it is legal to grow these poppies in the US, but illegal to buy or sell the seeds - go figure.” If they can’t grow them, how do they make more seeds? ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Lois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Ms.Lois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Lois)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2002, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poppies-poppies/103736/14 "2002-04-16T16:23:52Z")
After WWI, the vets sold poppies to raise money. In Georgetown Texas, the poppies were planted, and have become wild flowers. They have a festival every spring, and call themselves the “Poppy Capital of Texas”. Their poppies are strictly red, and are quite striking along with the bluebonnets in the springtime.