Description
The flowers have two sepals that fall off as the bud opens, and four (or up to six) petals in red, pink, orange, yellow, or lilac. There are many stamens in several whorls around a compound pistil, which results from the fusion of carpels. The stigmas are visible on top of the capsule, and the number of stigmas corresponds to the number of fused carpels.
The ovary later develops in a dehiscing capsule, capped by the dried stigmas. The numerous, tiny seeds escape with the slightest breeze through the pores of the capsule.
The typical Papaver gynoecium is hypogenous with a globular ovary. The style is characteristically absent for the type species Opium Poppy, and several others, although those with a style do exist. The sessile plate-like stigmata lies on top of the ovary. Pollen-receptive surfaces. The characteristic fruit type of Papaver is the unilocular capsule. The stigmatic disc rests on top of the capsule, and beneath it are dehiscent pores or valves.
Read more about this topic: Papaver
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)