Description: An annual poppy with an upright, bushy habit. Bristly, pale to mid-green Basal Leaves are oblong in shape with pinnatifid lobing and coarsely toothed margins. Scarlet red poppy flowers, often with a black blotch at their base, may initially be cup and saucer-shaped and become bowl-shaped with age. The petals may occasionally be lined with white at the margins. At the centre of each Bloom is a flat, disc-like stigma surrounded by a ring of dark stamens. The Blooms are held singly atop bristly, upright stems and are produced through the summer. Attractive to pollinating insects. The flat, disc-like stigma will develop into a 'pepper-pot' seed Capsule, usually containing prolific amounts of seed.

The red poppy has become the symbol of Veterans and Remembrance Day and is based on the form of Papaver rhoeas. Dormant seed of this plant often come into growth in disturbed ground (seeds of P. rhoeas can lie Dormant and buried in the soil for at least 100 years and then go on to grow successfully). They were a common sight often in their thousands - in fields that had seen battle. Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote the famous poem In Flanders Fields after seeing what were once battlefields blanketed in these red flowers.

A teacher, Moina Michael, from Georgia, USA was moved by the poem and successfully campaigned to make the red poppy the official symbol of remembrance. Since 1921 models of poppies have been sold to raise money for veterans charities.

Synonym - Papaver vulgaris, P. arvaticum

Additional common names - Field Poppy, Corn Poppy, Common Poppy