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Believe
it or not, there are at least twelve different types
of poppy in Britain, and you need to identify which
one you have. Luckily, we are dealing with red-flowered
poppies, of which there are five. We are
not recording poppies with yellow or orange
flowers (welsh poppy, yellow horned poppy,
Californian poppy, Mexican poppy, Atlas poppy) or
the large-flowered perennial oriental poppy, a garden
plant that sometimes grows in the wild. Neither are
we recording opium poppy, which usually has white,
pink or purple flowers and is increasingly common
in the wild. This can sometimes have red flowers,
but its leaves have a waxy blue-grey appearance and
are unlike any other poppy.
If you have a red-flowered poppy, you can identify
it from the pictures and by following the key below.
Firstly, look in the centre of the flower. Sitting
on the point where the petals join-in together, you
will see a small green "pod" with a lid.
This is called the capsule and is undeveloped seed-pod.
Here's
a few questions that will help identify the poppy
you have:
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