Common Poppy

Name: Common Poppy

Scientific name: Papaver rhoeas

Category: Flowers

Nature Stars: 30

What are nature stars?

About: A common 'weed' in crop fields and on waste ground, when entire fields can look red from a distance. A tall plant, growing up to 80cm tall. Flowers in mid summer through to the early autumn.

How to identify: With their big red flowers, poppies are one of the most familiar of wild flowers. There are seven very similar species, which are hard to tell apart.

Where: Found in England and lowland parts of Wales and Scotland.

Fantastic fact: The poppy fields in the Wizard of Oz send people to sleep forever.

Photograph credit: Helen Freeston