Hi, I would appreciate your help with this : Can the plant on the head of the sculpture be identified as Papaver Somniferum ? I found very different plants with the above name in the internet, obviously, though, there can be only one. Could you advise me on a scientific source about the origins of this plant in the Eastern Mediterranean area? Leila
I know nothing about this, and perhaps you've already found this page that discusses this Poppy Goddess sculpture and gives links to two articles: Minoans, the “Poppy Goddess” and Opium | Alberti’s Window. The writer references one of the articles when she says: Those different-looking flowers are mostly cultivars or forms of Papaver somniferum.
Hi Wendy, Thank you for the answer. Yes indeed, I have read the paper. Kritikos is a pharmacist, who popularised this idea. There is though, no scientific evidence in his article. I thought a specialist in botanics could see what flower it is if it is indeed identifiable.
This is the seed head of Papaver somniferum, and not the flower per se. I don't know that one can get more specific with a stylized sculpture, but it looks readily identifiable as a poppy seed head, the sort bled for opium.
I would love to see seed heads identified correctly for Papaver somniferum, P. orientale and P. nudicaule. As Laila indicated, what appear to be the different plants do show up with the same name, and I can't tell if the seed heads just change their appearance as they age (different stages of the same thing) or are they different plants. I could make it a project, unless it's already available somewhere.
These look to be correctly identified: Papaver somniferum: File:Mohnkapsel 1.jpg - Wikimedia Commons File:Papaver open zaadkleppen.jpg - Wikimedia Commons note glabrous, glaucous-waxed stem Papaver orientale: File:Papaver orientale L..jpg - Wikimedia Commons (immature) note bristly stem & velvety top of capsule Papaver nudicaule: File:Curtis's botanical magazine (8293287977).jpg - Wikimedia Commons note narrow capsule compared to above two
Thank you, Michael! The stigmatic rays on the Papaver orientale picture: are they going to rise to appear similar to the crown on the P. somniferum? Did the rays on the somniferum start out purple like on the orientale picture, flat to the seed head?
Hi Wendy, Thanrose and Michael, and thanks again for the help I will try to summarise, please correct me if something seems misunderstood. The bulk of pictures on the internet tagged “opium poppy” are not necessarily Papaver Somniferum, Here is the USDA classification. Classification | USDA PLANTS As seen above, there is only one flower/ species Papaver Somniferum. It is this one : Papaver somniferum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The pod on the picture I posted seems alike to the one of P. Somniferum, but to many pods of another species too. It is an artists’ representation, (dating 1400 - 1200 BCE), the poppy pod being a stylised symbol, and not a botanically correct presentation of the plant. We cannot insist that an identification of a specific contemporary poppy species, being it Papaver Somniferum or another one is possible in this case. On the notches, I would comment that many artist's representations of the poppy expose similar lines to indicate the segmented structure of the pod. They may look like notches now, but note that the head ornament and hair, and maybe the whole figure was painted - with engobe. It is not a durable paint, and has remained just in the incisions.
I have an answer to my question in posting #5, with this seed head of Papaver orientale 'Dwarf Allegro' from UBCBG (too bad I don't have a flower photo to go with it, but that's not necessary for the purpose here). It's pretty clear that the aging stigmatic rays are staying flat against the seed head and are not going to look anything like those on a Papaver somniferum seed head.
