La royal poppy or poppy is a herb well known to all, although perhaps for what it should be known. Its flowers are very ornamental, and it is for this reason that it is very interesting to have it in a pot or in the garden.
However, to really know it it is important that we see all "its faces" or uses. So let's go there 🙂.
Origin and characteristics
The royal poppy or opium poppy, whose scientific name is Papaver somniferum, is an annual herbaceous native to the southern and eastern Mediterranean. Reaches a height of between 15cm and 1,5m, with straight, glabrous and somewhat hairy stems from which 2-30 by 0,5-20cm leaves sprout, oblong-ovate or lobed. The flowers are pedunculated, solitary, terminal white, pink, red or purplish. The fruit is a subglobose capsule, inside which are the black and alveolo-reticulated seeds.
It has been cultivated for about 4000 years, since the semi-ripe fruits, as well as their dried sap, have a high content of alkaloids, so they are used to make opium and derivatives (such as heroin) illegally. But they also have a very positive use: in medicine these same alkaloids are used as a source of active substances such as morphine and codine, which are powerful analgesics that relieve pain.
What are their cares?
If you want to have a copy, we recommend that you provide it with the following care:
- Location: outside, in full sun.
- Earth:
- Pot: universal growing substrate mixed with 30% perlite.
- Garden: it is indifferent as long as it has good drainage.
- Irrigation: 3-4 times a week in summer, somewhat less the rest of the year.
- Subscriber: from early spring to late summer with organic fertilizers, once a month.
- Multiplication: by seeds in spring.
- Rusticity: it does not support cold or frost.
What did you think of the real poppy?