The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Papaver rhoeas
Also called Corn poppy, Flanders Poppy, Field Poppy, Red Poppy, Shirley Poppy, Cornfield Poppy, Headache
Common poppy is a hardy annual wildflower with large, vivid red four-petalled flowers, often growing in disturbed soil and fields. It grows easily from seed sown in autumn or early spring in full sun and well-drained soil.
Papaver rhoeas, with common names including common poppy, corn poppy, corn rose, field poppy, Flanders poppy, red poppy, and Odai, is an annual herbaceous species of flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae. It is native to north Africa and temperate Eurasia and is introduced into temperate areas on all other continents except Antarctica.
It is regarded as an agricultural weed (hence the common names including "corn" and "field"). As the plant thrives in areas of disturbed soil, it was often abundant in agricultural fields before the advent of herbicides. Flushes of poppies may still appear in fields where herbicides are not used, as well as those in fallow. The corn poppy and its cultivars such as the Shirley poppy are widely grown in gardens, and are frequently found in packets of seed labelled "wildflower mixes".
The species is found within Africa, in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Madeira Islands, and the Canary Islands. Within temperate Asia, it is found in the Caucasus regions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ciscaucasia.
The commonly grown garden decorative Shirley poppy is a cultivar of this plant.
Icelandic Poppy · Bristle Poppy · Oriental poppy · Dark-spotted poppy · Armenian poppy · Oriental poppy · Oreomecon radicata · Opium Poppy · Poppy
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Papaver rhoeas by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
