About Alaska Red Poppy

Sometimes called Common Poppy, Corn Poppy or Field Poppy, Papaver rhoeas dots roadsides and agricultural landscapes throughout the world with its lacy grey-green foliage and vivid red blooms, from North America to Europe, Africa and Asia. Papaver rhoeas is an erect, singlestemmed annual, growing up to about 2 feet-tall. Rising from a bed of deeply lobed, fern-like foliage, each stem holds a single flower: 4 silky red petals, usually 2–4 inches across, which generally bloom from late spring to late summer.

The Red Poppy’s tendency to grow on disturbed sites is behind the flower’s notoriety as an icon of World War I, during which time trench digging, explosions, and the creation of mass cemeteries caused millions of Red Poppy seeds to break dormancy, blanketing the devastated European countryside with beautiful red blooms. Since World War I, the Red Poppy has been used to commemorate casualties of war, its likeness worn on lapel pins and badges (known as “Remembrance Poppies”) on Veterans Day. Owing to this strong tradition, the U.K.’s Remembrance Day is also known as Poppy Day.

There's enough seed here to plant an entire meadow full of poppies — almost 90,000 seeds in all! Scattered in an informal, wildflower planting, this seed will cover about 1,400 square feet, or an area roughly 38' x 38'. Approximately 70% of these seeds will germinate.