Plant of the Week: Mexican Poppies

Mexican poppy is a common name for several plants and may refer to: Hunnemannia and Argemone mexicana species.

The term poppy is used to describe any flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colorful flowers. One species of poppy, Papaver somniferum, produces edible seeds and is also the source of the crude drug opium which contains powerful medicinal alkaloids such as morphine and has been used since ancient times as an analgesic and a source of narcotic, medicinal and recreational drugs. Following the trench warfare which took place in the poppy fields of Flanders, during the First World War, poppies have become a symbol of remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime.

Poppies are herbaceous annual, biennial or short-lived perennial plants. Some species are monocarpic, dying after flowering. Poppies can be over 4 feet tall with flowers up to six inches across. The flowers have 4 to 6 petals, many stamens forming a conspicuous whorl in the centre of the flower and an ovary consisting of from 2 to many fused carpels. The petals are showy, may be of almost any color and some have markings. The petals are crumpled in the bud and as blooming finishes, the petals often lie flat before falling away. Poppies are in full bloom late spring to early summer.

Hunnemannia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the poppy family Papaveraceae, containing the single species Hunnemannia fumariifolia (tulip poppy or Mexican tulip poppy) native to the highlands of Mexico. It is typically found at elevations of 5,000 to 6,500 feet in the Chihuahuan Desert and south into central Mexico, where it favors rocky habitats, occurring along roadsides as well.

It is a perennial whose erect stems are somewhat woody at the base, and may reach 24 inches in height. The leaves resemble those of the closely related Eschscholzia, being finely divided into many gray-green linear lobes. The flowers are solitary yellow cups formed from four overlapping petals, 2 inches across, vaguely resembling the unrelated tulip; the two sepals underneath typically fall away as the flower opens. The numerous stamens are short, with orange anthers. The long thin fruits are also reminiscent of Eschscholzia.

The genus is named for English botanist and collector John Hunnemann (1760-1839). The Latin fumariifolia literally means "with leaves like Fumaria" (fumitory).

It is widely cultivated, usually as an annual from seed. The cultivar 'Sunlite' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

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Photo Credit: By No machine-readable author provided. Curtis Clark assumed (based on copyright claims). - No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=716110