FOTD – September 29 – Poppy Week! – Day 1

Finally, I’ve collected enough photos of my crop of this year’s poppies to again be able to post seven days worth of these gorgeous, and often quite unusual, flowers. Join me each day this week and enjoy the journey! 🙂

I’ve shown earlier the main difference between my two generic poppy types, the large, red papaver rhoeas and the smaller, orange papaver argemone, but this time i want to show the sometimes very subtle, sometimes simply stunning, variations that have developed from my original ‘common’ red poppy.

First, some of the subtler variation:

(Click on image to open in a new window and click again to expand)The ‘Classic’ pure red poppy of remembrance 🙂

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With 2 pairs of petals, seemingly made out of satin,the smaller inner pair on this poppy has developed a thin paintbrush streak of jet black to match the black stamen around the seed pod. This is a large flower over 8cm (3in) across!

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Here the two outer petals have developed the black streak and all four have ended with a tip of pure white making a ‘cross’ of remembrance. The smaller ‘normal’ poppy beneath is around 3-4 cm across (1 1/2 in).

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Another ‘4 point cross’ poppy, but with barely a hint of a white outline to the tips. This is a deep cup poppy, bearing a strong resemblance to a red anemone with it’s profusion of black stamen. The black cell markings on the yellow seed pod distinguishes this flower from both anemones and it’s fellow poppies. The bee seeks to make his escape from the pollen-laden stamen and move on to the next in line.! 🙂

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Four black cross poppies, but 1 and 3 are a scarlet shade while 2 and 4 are the usual deep red. (The camera does not show the difference as much as you can see it in sunlight!) The smaller poppy, top centre, is 3cm (a little over 1 inch) in diameter and is around half the height of his larger companions. It also has no black inside at all. Sunlight is highlighting the edge of the first poppy and most of the 2nd, while the rest are in shade. 🙂
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Somehow this little beauty has lost it’s black streak almost entirely, but the white at the ‘end’ remains and has actually enlarged more than in those with a ‘tipped’ cross.

More in Day 2. 🙂

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link to:

Cee’s Flower of the Day – September 29, 2019 – Autumn Leaf

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