Is this what I think it is?

by -Pastelish

24 Comments

  1. micathemineral

    …a poppy? yes. Adding geographic location would help people give you an ID beyond that.

  2. a poppy, probably not THAT kind of poppy, but i know more about flowers than i do about opium

  3. throwawaybsme

    Poppy. All poppies are legal in the US. You can own them, plant them, grow them, harvest seeds for muffins, etc. The only thing illegal is using it to create the illegal substance.

  4. Happy-Example-1022

    Papaver somniferum, opium poppy. Annual.

  5. mrshelmstreet

    It’s a poppy.. Looks like asian or corn poppy to me.

  6. beans3710

    Looks like it to me. I had them at an old house of mine. They are perennials so they come back every spring. They are totally legal to grow in the US.

  7. trikakeep

    I believe is Papaver orientale or Oriental poppy, not the opium poppy which is Papaver somniferum. Seeing the leaves could confirm ID.

  8. Fun fact, the poppies used to produce medicines are the same kind of poppy that produces edible seeds. When you harvest the seeds you have to wash off the latex or else it’ll poison whoever eats it.

    Alternatively…..

    Fun fact, after you harvest the opium from your poppies, you can use the seeds in your baked goods. They aren’t intoxicating after the opium is washed off, but they’re still delicious.

    On a very serious note, harvesting the latex from ornamental poppies and trying to use it as if it were opium can have a fatal end. A lot of them produce papaverine and thebaine, alkaloids that are present in the latex of the opium poppy, papaver somniferum. The problem is that they don’t produce morphine or codeine in meaningful amounts, so people don’t get the intoxicating effects. This makes them consume more of what they think is opium, but they end up giving themselves a lethal dose of some other alkaloid that has a messy, and often painful, end. I’ve done a lot of research trying to grow my own, back when I was in some bad habits. It’s easy to do, with some basic gardening skills, and if you have a medicinal herb garden, it has lots of legitimate uses. The problem is that it’s also easy to mess up, not realize you messed up, then put what you don’t realize is poison in your body.

    TL:DR- Not all poppies make opium, but they (almost) all produce latex with some combination of possibly deadly and not fun substances in them.

  9. jana-meares

    That. Is a common poppy. Papa er somniferum. It can be opium. FYI

  10. shohin_branches

    What do you think it is? Why do people do this?

  11. ConversationNo9992

    How are we supposed to know what you think it is?

Write A Comment

Pin