Opium poppy
Papaver somniferum · Garden flowers
Opium poppy
Great Dixter, 8 June 2025
Crumpled, tissue-thin lilac petals still holding the creases from being packed tight inside the bud. Grown here for the flower alone.
It is the same species that produces opium and its derivatives, though nothing about growing it in an English border has anything to do with that. The seeds on a bread roll are the same plant too, and contain enough of the drug to fail a drugs test, which has happened.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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