POPPIES are instantly recognisable from the large papery petals on their summer flowers. Most have four broad petals cupping a mass of yellow-tipped pollen-bearing stigmas with, in the centre, a distinctive pod – rather like an old-fashioned jam pot.
The cup-shaped or saucer-shaped flowers can be 2-6in (5-15cm) across and, in the most familiar corn or Flanders poppy, are vivid-red. The flowers come in a wide range of other colours, although not blue and rarely yellow, and the petals appear crumpled as the buds open but flatten out elegantly.
The seed pods, which can be dried for winter arrangements, contain large numbers of tiny black seeds that spread as