Species
+

Papaver orientale L.

Oriental Poppy, Oriental poppy, Oriental poppy (EN), Orientalischer Mohn (DE)

Climate known 51 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Papaver orientale, the Oriental poppy, is a perennial flowering plant native to the Caucasus, northeastern Turkey, and northern Iran.

Text from Wikipedia, “Papaver orientale”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Papaver

Papaver is a genus of 70–100 species of frost-tolerant annuals, biennials, and perennials native to temperate and cold regions of Eurasia, Africa and North America. It is the type genus of the poppy family, Papaveraceae.

Text from Wikipedia, “Papaver”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Papaveraceae
Described by
L.
Native to
North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran +1
Wild records
71 in range· 48 open

At a glance

Warmest month
21°C
Aug, mean day; nights 11 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
719mm/yr
12 wet months · peak May 97 mm (CHELSA)
Light
14–44DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a winter growing season, February to June and October to November in the northern hemisphere (February to June and October to November at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 719 mm a year, wettest May at 97 mm, driest September at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 44 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -18.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Calomecon orientale (L.) Spach; Papaver dzeghamicum Medw.; Papaver grandiflorum Moench; Papaver spectabile Salisb.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, February to June and October to November in the northern hemisphere (February to June and October to November at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (504 mm of 719 mm) falls in February to June and October to November, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 4.3 °C against a yearly mean of 5.5 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: April to May and August to December.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 719 mm a year, wettest May at 97 mm, driest September at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

719 mm a year at the habitat, 504 mm of it February to June and October to November. Wettest month May at 97 mm, driest September at 40 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 536 mm to 1048 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 44 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 44 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -18.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -18.3 °C, the absolute minimum -25.1 °C, about 160 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -11.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells -14.8 °C to -7.4 °C), warmest day 21.4 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -18.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 61% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from -3 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Aug; mean night from -11 °C in Jan to 11 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 719 mm of rain a year, most in May. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 61 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -25.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost29.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)-25.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 14–44RH 59–61 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 61 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C-3 / -6–1-2 / -5–22 / -1–79 / 6–1414 / 11–1918 / 15–2421 / 18–2721 / 18–2718 / 15–2212 / 9–165 / 2–8-1 / -4–3
Night °C-11 / -15–-7-11 / -14–-6-6 / -10–-3-1 / -5–44 / -0–88 / 4–1311 / 8–1611 / 8–168 / 4–113 / -1–6-4 / -8–-0-9 / -13–-5
Rain mm41 / 24–7849 / 31–7865 / 43–8990 / 63–11397 / 70–14286 / 37–13549 / 22–9244 / 18–7940 / 20–7359 / 45–9058 / 40–9041 / 26–79
DLI17 / 14–1923 / 20–2631 / 27–3336 / 32–3939 / 35–4344 / 37–4743 / 37–4739 / 34–4331 / 26–3623 / 20–2717 / 14–2014 / 12–17
RH %60 / 56–6360 / 57–6360 / 57–6261 / 56–6261 / 54–6460 / 51–6560 / 50–6560 / 49–6559 / 48–6459 / 53–6460 / 56–6360 / 56–64

Each figure is the median across the 61 grid cells holding the 67 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 986:4497 (40.675, 44.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -25.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -18.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 61 distinct grid cells holding the 67 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 986:4497 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 40.50_45.000, lapse-corrected +29 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2084 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeNorth Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Turkey· introduced: Finland, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Romania, Baltic States, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Ontario, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker40.507, 44.8 · in the densest population, 45 records (63% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 71 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 48 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 31 km away. 1721 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 4 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 71 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Papaver orientalePapaver orientalePapaver orientalePapaver orientalePapaver orientalePapaver orientalePapaver orientalePapaver orientale

Photographs: (c) Daniel Patterson, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Robert M Hallock, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Ryan Donnelly, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) sprcrkwild, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Papaver orientale, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Production and gene expression of morphinan alkaloids in hairy root culture of Papaver orientale L. using abiotic elicitors
Seyed Mohammad Hashemi, Mohammad Reza Naghavi (2015) · Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC)
Proficient dye removal from water using biogenic silver nanoparticles prepared through solid-state synthetic route
Mohsen Rahimi Sharbaf Moghadas, Elaheh Motamedi, Jaber Nasiri, Mohammad Reza Naghavi (2020) · Heliyon
Evolutionary DNA variation in Papaver
Sangeeta Srivastava, U. C. Lavania (1991) · Genome
Alkaloids of Papaver orientale and Papaver pseudo-orientale
I. Lalezari, P. Nasseri‐Nouri, R. Asgharian, Abbas Shafiee (1975) · Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Somatic Embryogenesis, Rhizogenesis, and Morphinan Alkaloids Production in Two Species of Opium Poppy
My Abdelmajid Kassem, Annie Jacquin (2001) · BioMed Research International
Ueber die Alkaloide von Papaver orientale
Walter Klee (1914) · Archiv der Pharmazie
Alkaloids from Turkish Samples of Papaver orientale and P. pseudo-orientale
J. Phillipson, A. Scutt, Asuman Baytop, Neriman Özhatay (1981) · Planta Medica
Alkaloids of Papaver orientale L.
Abbas Shafiee, I. Lalezari, Farahnak Assadi, F. Khalafi (1977) · Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Papaver 5 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 106 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.