Iceland poppy
| Habit | herbaceous
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| Lifespan: | ⌛ | perennial, biennial |
| Exposure: | ☼ | sun |
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| Water: | ◍ | moderate |
| Features: | ✓ | flowers |
| Flower features: | ❀ | red, orange, yellow, pink, white, single |
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Papaver > |
The Iceland Poppy (Papaver nudicaule syn. Papaver croceum, P. amurense, P. miyabeanum, and P. macounii) is a boreal flowering plant. Native to subpolar regions of northern Europe and North America, Iceland poppies are hardy but short-lived perennials,grown as biennials, that yield large, papery, bowl-shaped, lightly fragrant flowers supported by hairy, 1-foot, curved stems among feathery blue-green foliage 1-6 inches long. They were first described by botanists in 1759. The wild species blooms in white or yellow, and is hardy from USDA Zones 3a-10b. All parts of this plant are likely to be poisonous[1], containing (like all poppies) toxic alkaloids. In particular, P. nudicaule has been shown to contain the benzophenanthidine alkaloid, chelidonine. [2]
Read about Iceland poppy in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Papaver nudicaule, Linn. Iceland Poppy. Mostly a yellow-fld. arctic perennial, more robust than the two preceding, cespitose. nearly stemless: lvs. all radical and petiolate, somewhat glaucous, glabrous or hairy, pinnatifid, the segms. oblong and entire or lobed: scapes single or several, usually 1 ft. high, the bud ovoid or nearly globose, pilose, usually nodding; fls. 1-2 in. diam., sweet-scented; petals obovate and sinuate, white with yellow base or yellow with greenish base, the 2 inner ones smaller: caps, oblong or obovate-globose, hispid or rarely glabrous. Arctic regions. E. and W. hemispheres.—The species runs into very many botanical forms. In America a form or similar species is found as far south as S. Colo.The following varieties are in the trade: album, auranti-acum, coccineum, croceum, striatum, and sulphureum. Double forms in the various colors are advertised. Older names which are likely to appear are vars. luteum, puniceum, and rubro-aurantiacum. B.M. 2344. The name "nudicaule" refers to the lack of lvs. on the scape, which distinguishes this and the alpine poppy from the common corn poppy of Eu. P. greenlandicum, Hort., is possibly a catalogue name for P. nudicaule. The Iceland poppy is a favorite for spring bloom. It is a hardy perennial, but blooms the first year from seed. It has neat evergreen foliage on the ground. The colors have been much varied in the cult, sorts, so that the gardener has choices in pure white, bright yellows, orange, and orange-scarlet. If the seed-pods are continuously removed, the plant will bloom throughout most of the summer. The fls. are very useful for cutting CH
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Cultivation
The plants prefer light, well-drained soil and full sun, but the plants are not hardy in hot weather, perishing within a season in hot summer climates.
Iceland poppies, like all poppies, possess exceedingly minute seeds and long taproots that resent disturbance. So the seeds are best sown outdoors in autumn (or, at the very latest, in earliest spring) where you wish them to grow, in a reasonably well-drained soil. In mild winter climates, start Iceland poppy seeds indoors and transplant seedlings into their desired positions when they are 2-4 inches tall. The strongest plants are autumn-sown. In cool summer climates on well-drained soils, Iceland poppies can live 2-3 seasons, flowering from early spring to fall [3].
Iceland poppies are amongst the best poppies for cutting, lasting several days in the vase if they are cut just before the buds open and the stem-ends are seared for ten seconds in a flame or boiling water so that their white latex doesn’t leak out. They come in reds oranges, and yellows.
Propagation
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Pests and diseases
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Varieties
Cultivars come in shades of yellow, orange, salmon, rose, pink, cream and white as well as bi-colored varieties. Seed strains include: ‘Champagne Bubbles’ (15-inch plants in orange, pink, scarlet, apricot, yellow, and creamy-white); ‘Wonderland’ (10-inch dwarf strain with flowers up to 4 inches wide); ‘Flamenco’ (pink shades, bordered white, 1 1/2 to 2 feet tall); ‘Party Fun’ (to 1 foot, said to bloom reliably the first year in autumn and the second spring); ‘Illumination’ and ‘Meadow Pastels’ (to 2 feet, perhaps the tallest strains); ‘Matador’ (scarlet flowers to 5 inches across on 16 inch plants); and ‘Oregon Rainbows’, which has large selfed, bicolor, and picoteed flowers and is perhaps the best strain for the cool Pacific Northwest[4] (elsewhere this strain’s buds frequently fail to open).
Gallery
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photo 1
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photo 3
References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Iceland poppy. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
- Iceland poppy QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)
- ↑ Kingsbury, J. M. (1964) Poisonous plants of the United States and Canada. Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., USA. pp. 626
- ↑ Zhang, Y., Pan, H., Chen, S., Meng, Y., Kang, S. (1997). [Minor alkaloids from the capsule of Papaver nudicaule L.] Zhongguo Zhong Yao Za Zhi 22: 550-1, 576. In Chinese.
- ↑ Armitage, Allan M. (2001) Armitage’s Manual of Annuals, Biennials, and Half-Hardy Perennials (Timber Press; ISBN 0-88192-505-5)
- ↑ Sunset Publishing (2001) Sunset Western Garden Book, ed. 7 (Sunset Books Incorporated: ISBN 0-37603-874-8)