Saturday, September 29, 2012

CA poppy ~ 09/29/12 ~ Rocky Creek

Papaveraceae

In all of my previous posts of CA poppies, I either talk about or show the characteristic red ring that distinguishes this poppy from other Eschscholzia spp. found in California.  The red ring is particularly noticeable once the flower has gone to seed.  I got the "red ring" terminology from Vern Yadon's collaborative Wildflowers of Monterey County.  Until researching for this post, I didn't know any other name for this distinctive flower structure.


 
As a backstory, I've been growing poppies at home this summer, along with baby blue eyes and a small lupine, from a wildflower seed packet handed to me by the Monterey City forestry folks at a local farmers' market. The packet mixture listed non-native wildflowers, like corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas), which did not come up.  The lupine went to seed over a month ago, which mirrors what I've seen out in the wild.  I suspected the poppies and baby blue eyes, two flowers I generally associate as spring bloomers, were only in bloom this late in the year because I was watering them.  So, I was chuffed to find these poppies blooming out in the wild down the coast.

What caught my attention about my garden "wildflower" poppies is that they have a small ring, but they're not red.  With this in mind, once I found the poppies shown here down at Rocky Creek, I proceeded to check for rings.  It was interesting because there were gradient areas where the red rings were prominent, then intergrade with partially red rings, then rings with no red.  I was actually hoping what I was growing at home and what I found with non-red rings were tufted poppy (Eschscholzia caespitosa).  Nope.

I did an internet search for Eschscholzia californica with "red ring" and only came up with my own blog posts.  Jepson eFlora mentions "receptacle rim" and "spreading rim".  The USDA Plant Guide PDF talks about "torus rim" and "collar-like pedestal".  Neither mentions the color of the rim.  After some more searching, including checking all of Jepson eFlora's 12 Eschscholzia spp. and ssp. descriptions and Calflora's 17 records with its linked CalPhotos, I've come to the conclusion that only CA poppies have rings, aka rims, regardless of the color.  If anyone knows differently, I'd love to hear from you.  I did find references to a non-Jepson recognized Eschscholzia mexicana (aka Eschscholzia californica ssp. mexicana) having small rims, but its natural wild areas are in southeast CA to other states (as a side note, it's funny that Lee Dittmann is the photographer in my small rims AZ link, because his name was brought up in e-mail conversation with a retired Coe Park ranger regarding 30 years of erroneously reported elegant piperia that I caught).  I'm left wondering if the promulgation of wildflower seed packets has introduced a genetic mix, such that native versus non-native can no longer be separated.


Genetics is fascinating.  Red rings, non-red rings, white petals, red petals, two-toned petals, etc.  How about three petals?

 
At the end of the day, I revert back to my ol' classic line, "Oooh, pretty flower!"

11 comments:

randomtruth said...

I've always heard it called a "collar," and I believe that E. californica is the only species with it. I've seen lobbii, caespitosa, minutiflora, and lemmonii and they don't have it.

The Field of Gold said...

Now that's thrown me. Lot's of different ones. In the southern hemisphere ours are out in November.
See. http://thefieldofgold.blogspot.co.nz/2010/11/californias-state-flower-in-new-zealand.html?utm_source=BP_recent
No too long to wait and I shall be looking. So of the photos in the post listed above show a 'ring' But I will have to look for a red one. Kerry

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Ooh, "collar". Great, Ken. I also found "disc" in one of my flower books. At next month's CNPS mtg. (I'm going to miss the one this week), I want to ask Vern why he made a point about them being red (twice!) in his book.

Kerry, I've heard CA poppies are considered a nasty weed in NZ and AU. Is that true? Here they can bloom from Feb-Oct (literature). When we were down there, much of NZ reminded me so much of CA, especially from Napier to Dunedin. It's the 30°-45° latitude and ocean exposure we share with the Mediterranean Basin, Chile, South Africa, and southern parts of Australia. We have many NZ plants as garden ornamentals.

Jeannette said...

I just know I will be checking my poppies for little red collars...

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Jeannetter, I'll be curious if you find what I found with intergrades of red to no red.

Jennifer said...

Interesting post. Steve brings these home from Rocky. I love it!

Anonymous said...

Hey, have you seen this website already? Curtis Clark teaches at Cal Poly and wrote the treatment of Eschscholzia in Jepson.
http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/poppy/index.html

My own photos of poppies at the Antelope Valley reserve show dark red collars.

Anonymous said...

Also, the Curtis Clark website gives a really thorough explanation of why poppy seeds should never be broadcast in areas where they can be cross pollinated with wild poppy populations. I hope that the Forestry people handing out these seeds are aware of the ill effects of genetic pollution, and are only handing out locally collected seeds of Eschscholzia californica.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Thanks for the link, Anon. Who are you?

Michelle said...

I’m doing an art project of CA poppies and noticed some of the photos had the receptacle rim this article is about. In most of the photos I saw that showed it well, the color appears to be kind of a red-violet, magenta or purplish color. I really would like to get this project accurate. Would you please tell me if this is correct or if it is indeed red? Thank you in advance.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Oh, my goodness, Michelle! I just found your comment as I no longer get e-mail notifications from google for this blog. I hope your art project turned out well. To answer your question... I've looked at the "underpants" of many a CA poppy. The color ranges from hot pink to faded orangish-yellowish cream. Hope that helps in some belated way.