
Papaveraceae (pa-pav-er-AY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Sepals usually pop off the flower
- Flowers often nodding
- Leaves often highly-dissected and fernlike
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Annual, biennial, or perennial herbs
- Also a few woody shrubs or small trees
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets) or compound (divided into leaflets)
- Often highly dissected and fern-like
- Alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
- Flowers
- Flowers are bisexual, often nodding, and of two types
- Poppy subfamily (Papaveroideae)
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) is solitary and often large
- Radially-symmetrical flower with a wide-open cup shape, petals usually in fours, and numerous stamens (male flower parts), e.g. poppy
- Fumitory subfamily (Fumariaceae)
- Inflorescence is usually a raceme (unbranched stem with stalked flowers opening from the bottom up)
- Bilaterally-symmetrical flowers, with usually 6 stamens and 4 petals in two dissimilar pairs, e.g. bleeding heart
- Poppy subfamily (Papaveroideae)
- Sepals (usually green, outer flower parts) generally half the number of petals
- Usually shed after flower opens
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Flowers are bisexual, often nodding, and of two types
- Fruit is a capsule (a dry multi-chambered pod that splits open) with many small seeds
- Capsules of some species open explosively
Notes
- Approximately 770 species worldwide
- Found in temperate and subtropical climates, usually in the Northern Hemisphere
- Includes poppies, cream cups, and bleeding hearts
- Plants produce a caustic latex, which is usually colored and may be milky or watery
- Pollinated mostly by insects, usually flies, wasps, or bees
- Flowers in the Poppy subfamily (Papaveroideae) have numerous stamens offering pollen and lack nectaries
- Flowers in the Fumitory subfamily (Fumarioideae) have only 6 stamens and offer pollen and nectar, the latter from a pouch or spur at the base of the 2 larger petals
- Seeds of some species, such as bleeding hearts (Dicentra species), have oily, fleshy appendages called elaiosomes, nutrient-rich food packages that attract ants
- Ants carry the seeds back to their colony, feed the food packet to their larvae, and discard the seed, thus aiding in seed dispersal (Lengyel 2010)
- This strategy for seed dispersal, called myrmecochory, is a kind of mutualism, as both the plant and ants benefit
- Many species contain narcotic alkaloids
- Morphine and culinary poppy seeds both come from the opium or breadseed poppy, Papaver somniferum
- Scientific name from the included genus Papaver, first published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus, from the Latin papaver, “poppy”
- The previously separate Fumitory family (Fumariaceae) was combined with the Poppy family due to the similar chemistry of its poisonous compounds and leaf traits
- Represented by 4 species at Edgewood
Specific References
Lengyel S. 2010. Convergent evolution of seed dispersal by ants, and phylogeny and biogeography in flowering plants: A global survey. Abstract. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 12: 43–55. Science Direct.
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family

