Long-head poppy

Papaver dubium (long-headed poppy) is an annual herb of the poppy family (Papaveraceae) producing slender, erect, sparingly branched flowering stems up to about 60 cm tall from a slim taproot, the stems covered with stiff, closely appressed bristly hairs. The alternate leaves are deeply pinnately lobed with narrow, coarsely toothed segments, and the foliage exudes a thin white latex when broken. From late spring through midsummer single nodding buds open to large showy four-petalled flowers 30–70 mm across in shades of pale red to orange-red, usually lacking the dark basal blotch of the related common poppy. The fruit is a distinctively elongated, glabrous capsule that is more than twice as tall as wide, narrowing toward the apex and crowned by a flat stigmatic disc narrower than the capsule itself, releasing many tiny seeds through pores beneath the disc. Native to Europe, North Africa, and southwestern Asia and widely naturalised elsewhere, it grows on disturbed sandy or gravelly lime-free soils in arable fields, road verges, and waste ground.