Yellow Iceland Poppy
by J McCombie
Title
Yellow Iceland Poppy
Artist
J McCombie
Medium
Photograph
Description
This piece has been featured in the FAA Group, "Beautiful Poppies".
Iceland poppies have glistening, translucent flowers, which are a glowing sight when backlit by the sun. The petals look like tissue paper or crinkled silk. Their spring and early summer splendor in warm parts of the country can be enjoyed throughout the summer in cooler climates. They're short lived perennials that are best started fresh each year.
A rosette of thin, narrow leaves forms the base. The tall, slender stems are topped by flowers virtually in all colors of the rainbow but blue, with many hues in between. The ring of prominent yellow stamens enhances the colorful blooms. Stem height varies widely from 1 to 2 feet. There are semi-double forms as well.
The Iceland Poppy (Papaver nudicaule, syn. Papaver croceum, P. miyabeanum, P. amurense, and P. macounii) is a boreal flowering plant. Native to subpolar regions of Europe, Asia and North America, and the mountains of Central Asia (but not in Iceland), Iceland poppies are hardy but short-lived perennials, often grown as biennials, that yield large, papery, bowl-shaped, lightly fragrant flowers supported by hairy, one foot, curved stems among feathery blue-green foliage 1-6 inches long. They were first described by botanists in 1759. The wild species blooms in white or yellow, and is hardy from USDA Zones 3a-10b. All parts of this plant are likely to be poisonous, containing (like all poppies) toxic alkaloids. In particular, P. nudicaule has been shown to contain the benzophenanthidine alkaloid, chelidonine. It also contains (+)-amurine, (-)-amurensinine, (-)-O-methylthalisopavine, (-)-flavinantine and (-)-amurensine.
Cultivars come in shades of yellow, orange, salmon, rose, pink, cream and white as well as bi-colored varieties. Seed strains include: Champagne Bubbles (15-inch plants in orange, pink, scarlet, apricot, yellow, and creamy-white); Wonderland (10-inch dwarf strain with flowers up to 4 inches wide); Flamenco (pink shades, bordered white, 1 to 2 feet tall); Party Fun (to 1 foot, said to bloom reliably the first year in autumn and the second spring); Illumination and Meadow Pastels (to 2 feet, perhaps the tallest strains); Matador (scarlet flowers to 5 inches across on 16 inch plants); the perennial 'Victory Giants' with red petals and Oregon Rainbows, which has large selfed, bicolor, and picoteed flowers and is perhaps the best strain for the cool Pacific Northwest (elsewhere this strains buds frequently fail to open).
Uploaded
September 9th, 2012
Statistics
Viewed 453 Times - Last Visitor from White Plains, NY on 03/27/2024 at 1:05 PM
Embed
Share
Sales Sheet