Rob's plants
home garden plants wildlife seed photos
plant sale journal topics plantlinks fun guestbook

Argemone mexicana

 
Argemone mexicana
Mexican prickly poppy
Prickly barrel-shaped seedpods developing
Argemone mexicana
Single volunteer seedling, blooming mid-April

Synonym(s) Argemone leiocarpa
Common name Mexican prickly poppy
Family papaveraceae
Life cycle annual or perennial (Z8-11)
Flowers yellow (spring)
Size 20"
Light sun
Cultural notes well drained soil; drought-tolerant

Wildflower, usually annual, whose deeply cut spined leaves are gray-green with whitish veins. Papery yellow flowers appear in spring. Occurs naturally in the southern and southeastern US. Ours didn't act like annuals when I first started them in late winter – they stayed small throughout their first year, then shot up in early spring of year two, blooming by mid-March, and setting seed by late April. But in subsequent years, self-seeded plants have managed to complete their life cycle within a season.
The dried seedpods are hellish to handle, covered with small, loosely attached prickles that desire to embed themselves in tender fingers.

Mexican prickly poppy
Plenty of seedlings popping up in early May 2022

In our garden, this plant grows in the following area: left fence border

About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Argemone mexicana


Seed-starting details for this plant

  1. Seed from NARGS '18/'19 exchange. Baggy 70F (22%G, 10d)


I welcome comments about my web pages; feel free to use the form below to leave feedback about this particular page. For the benefit of other visitors to these pages, I will list any relevant comments you leave, and if appropriate, I will update my page to correct mis-information. Faced with an ever-increasing onslaught of spam, I'm forced to discard any comments including html markups. Please submit your comment as plain text. If you have a comment about the website as a whole, please leave it in my guestbook. If you have a question that needs a personal response, please e-mail me.

Your name

Your comments