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Common poppy (Papaver rhoeas)
Photo: Kieran Roy Powell, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

On the map in 4 countries flower symbol: Belgium, Poland, Ukraine, United Kingdom

Common poppy

Papaver rhoeas

Family: Papaveraceae

On our map this plant appears in 4 countries and ranks highest in: Belgium, Poland, United Kingdom, Ukraine.

The common poppy is an annual with hairy stems and fiery red petals, thin as tissue paper, with a black blotch at the base. Its tiny seeds can lie in the soil for many years and germinate en masse when the ground is disturbed – which is why it blooms on freshly ploughed fields and embankments. It flowers from May to July in cornfields, along roadsides and on waste ground. The petals were once used for dyeing and, in folk medicine, as a mild sedative.

Description from: Belgium.

More: Wikipedia (en) Wikipedia (pl) Plants of the World Online (Kew)

Significance in each country

  1. Belgium no. 1 of 8 native

    National flower of Belgium, a symbol of remembrance for those who fell in the First World War

    In 1915, near Ypres, the Canadian doctor John McCrae wrote the poem “In Flanders Fields”, in which the poppies growing between soldiers’ graves became a symbol of wartime sacrifice.

  2. Poland no. 2 of 15 native

    Unofficial national flower of Poland

    The poppy took root in Polish memory through the song “Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino” (“The Red Poppies on Monte Cassino”), which commemorates the soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps.

  3. United Kingdom no. 2 of 10 introduced or naturalised

    British symbol of remembrance for fallen soldiers (Remembrance Poppy)

    Poppies bloomed in vast numbers on the shell-torn fields of Flanders during the First World War, as immortalised in John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”.

  4. Ukraine no. 9 of 10 native

    Symbol of remembrance of the victims of World War II in Ukraine (since 2014)

    In 2014 Ukraine adopted the red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for the victims of World War II, drawing on the European tradition of poppies blooming on battlefields.