Bristle-haired perennial herb to over 1 m tall. Leaves to 20 cm long, regularly pinnately lobed with the lobe margins toothed. Flowers occasionally double, 10-15 cm wide with 4-6 obovate petals to 8 cm long that usually have a dark spot at the base, mostly red or orange but occasionally white or pink; spring. Capsule to 3 cm wide.
SW Asia
This plant is illegal in all states but sometimes, like Opium Poppy, grown in ignorance. P. orientale is similar to P. bracteatum (sometimes being treated as the variety P. orientale var. bracteatum, or even considered synonymous). One character of difference is the 3-5 oval sepal-like bracts immediately below the sepals of P. bracteatum. The extent to which these two species have been involved in the production of cultivars is uncertain. Those cultivars listed below may have P. bracteatum in their ancestry.
Source: (1997). Papaveraceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
About 40 cm tall with giant scarlet petals with black blotches at the base.
About 1 m tall, salmon pink.
Papaver orientale 'Curlilocks'
To about 70 cm tall with orange-red flowers having distinctively cut petals with black blotches at the base.
Papaver orientale 'Dwarf Allegro'
Less than 50 cm tall and forming dense clumps with large scarlet flowers.
Petals white with an orange fringe or orange stripes.
Papaver orientale 'Prinzessin Victoria Louise'
Stems to about 70 cm tall with flowers salmon-rose, black blotched. ['Princess Victoria Louise']
About 1 m tall, flowers red.
