Monet fan? Opium for the masses? Or just misfarming?

Or a field tilled by someone, who had already hallucinations about how to to get opium.





Or if it just was the result of some EU-law re set-aside of agricultural land.




:wink:

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

Which reminds me that once upon a time there was this center-left member with a similar name posting here so brilliantly ...

I don't know when those particular poppies showed up in Europe's fields. but I'll assume before Monet and his paint palette.

Maybe the field owner is a Monet fan and garden enthusiast, but not a painter.

Anyway, I like it..

for pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, the bloom is dead,
Or like a snowfall in the river,
A moment white, then gone forever,
Of like the rainbow's lovely form,
evanescing amid the storm,
Or like the borealis race that flits ere you
Can point the place

Wiki on Papaver orientale -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_poppy

Hmmm, I looked up opium poppy and got Papaver somniferum...

And now I see that Sunset distinguishes them. More to look up..

Correct, it's known here for some thousand years (they found seeds in Germanic tombs more than 2,000 years old), it's "papaver rhoeas".

Papaver somniferum
http://www.robsplants.com/plants/PapavSomni.php
http://www.dunngardens.org/summer/papaver_somniferum.html

Papaver orientale
http://www.wsu.edu/~lohr/wcl/PoppyOriental.jpg



I'm guessing they're 'orientale', but glad to be corrected.
Both come in various colors..
The leaves described differently.

Quoting Sunset Western Gardens..

Papaver orientale

Perennial[...]Native to the Caucasus, northeastern Turkey, northern Iran. Needs winter chill for best performance. In mild-winter areas, flowers tend to form without stalks so they are parly or completely hidden among the leaves. Height is variable; some types are just 16" tall, others reach 4 feet. Plants spread by offsets to 2 feet or more. These are amongh the leafiest of poppies, forming bushy clumps of hairy, medium green, coarsely cut leaves to 1 foot long. Blooms are 4-6" across, deeply crinkled petals often have a black blotch at the base. Many varieties are sold, offering single or double flowers in orange, scarlet, pink, salmon, or white.
(Skipping another paragraph.)

Papaver somniferum

Annual; may self-sow or even over winter in mild-winter areas. [..] Believed to have originated in southeastern Europe and west Asia. To 4 ft. tall. Virtually hairless gray-green leaves have jagged edges. Late spring flowers are 4-5 inches across, in white, pink, red, purple, deep plum, and are sometimes single, usually double; some of the double forms have fringed petals. Blooms are followed by large, decorative seed capsules used in dried arrangements. Opium is derived from the sap of the green capsules. Ripe pods yield large quantities of the poppy seed used in baking. Shake pods over a tray to collect the seeds. Because of its narcotic properties, this species is not as widely offered as many other types.

End quote.

It is definitely papaver rhoeas, aka Corn Poppy, Field Poppy, Flanders Poppy, or Red Poppy (in German 'Klatschmohn').

They just and only come in one colour: red.

Ah, thanks. I just saw that in Sunset after I finished type copying the others. Well, hey, I like all of them.

Adding on reading Sunset, there are other varieties of the P. rhoeas with other colors, Mother of Pearl and Angels' Choir, for example.

There's another papaver oft found in California that's a shrubby perennial..
Romneya coulteri. Gorgeous in its own way (flowers can be 9" wide).




That's a california native, as is Eschscholzia californica..

OMG! I love poppies! They're puurrrty! I'm so planting some next year! (I only have a patio so I have to do container gardening -- can't get much opium that way! )

And it looks like Romneya can be grown in New Mexico... so maybe next year..