Eschscholtzia californica Illustration Credit: Azmat

Annual or perennial glaucous herbs with watery juice. Leaves alternate, petioled, large, much dissected or ternately segmented. Inflorescences solitary, terminal or axillary on long axis. Flowers large and showy, yellow or whitish, long peduncled. Sepals 2, completely united forming a hood or calyptra-like cap which is pushed off over the bud as the petals expand. Petals 4, free. Stamens many, inserted at the base of the petals; filaments often shorter than the anthers with dilated base. Torus or thalamus, conspicuously hollowed and surrounding the base of pistil, giving calyx and corolla somewhat perigynous appearence. Ovary linear; style short; stigmas 4-6, unequal, filiform. Capsule slender, 1-loculed, dehiscing by 2 valves from the base to apex. Seeds numerous, globose; testa coriaceous.

10 species, distributed mostly in North America; represented by only one cultivated species in West Pakistan.

Lower Taxon

• Eschscholtzia californica Chain.