PAPAVERACEAE

POPPY FAMILY

Curtis Clark

Annual to small tree; sap often colored, often milky
Leaves basal, cauline, or both, generally toothed, lobed, or dissected; cauline generally alternate; stipules 0
Inflorescence: cyme, raceme, or panicle (terminal), or flower solitary
Flower bisexual, generally radial; sepals 2–4, sometimes shed ± at flower; petals generally 4 or 6 (or more), sometimes in 2 unlike pairs; stamens 4–many; ovary generally 1, superior, chamber generally 1, stigma lobes 0–many, ovules 1–many
Fruit: generally capsule, dehiscent by valves or pores, generally septicidal
Genera in family: 40 genera, 400 sp.: n temp, n tropical, s Africa; some cultivated (Papaver, Dicentra, Eschscholzia ). Petal length includes any spur or pouch. Hunnemannia fumariifolia Sweet (Eschscholzia-like garden per with free sepals) an uncommon waif in CA. Corydalis, Dicentra, Fumaria formerly treated in Fumariaceae.

FUMARIA

Annual, generally glabrous; sap colorless
Stem branched, 20–60 cm in CA
Leaves cauline, 2–6 cm in CA, finely pinnately dissected
Inflorescence: raceme, narrow in CA
Flower bilateral; sepals 2, shed after flower; petals 4, cream to purple, persistent after pollination, outer 2 petals free, not alike (upper spurred at base), inner 2 petals adherent at tips, oblanceolate, crested on back; stamens 6, ± fused in 2 sets opposite outer petals; ovary subspheric, style 1, deciduous, stigma dot-like
Fruit: nutlet, 2 mm in CA, spheric
Seed 1
Species in genus: ± 15 species: Eurasia
Etymology: (Latin: smoky, perhaps from odor of fresh roots)

Introduced

F. officinalis L.

FUMITORY

Flower: petals 5–7 mm, purple
Fruit: top not crested, depressed on both sides of stigma
Ecology: Disturbed places
Elevation: < 1000 m.
Bioregional distribution: South Coast
Distribution outside California: native to Europe