Prickly Poppy plant in bloomPrickly Poppy plant in bloom

Last week while I was out photographing in the west desert’s Stansbury Mountain Range I saw a Prickly Poppy (Argemone munita) in bloom in the road that goes up to one of the canyons and had to stop to take images of it. I love the almost crepe paper look the flower petals have. The poppy is well named because the leaves and flower stems do have spines on them. Cattle won’t eat Prickly Poppy probably because of the prickly spines but in addition the sap of this wildflowers is said to be poisonous. I know when I was close to the plant those spines made me think “I wouldn’t want to touch that plant!”.

Prickly Poppy close upPrickly Poppy close up

The flowers are about 4 to 5 inches across, white with lovely yellow stamens and a dark pistil in the center. It looks a bit like a sunny side up egg. I did not notice or detect an aroma when I was close to the plant but there were plenty of bees flying around the blooms.

This lovely perennial is also called flatbud prickly poppy, Mexican poppy, thistle poppy, and chicalote.

Photographing birds is my passion but I can’t resist photographing wildflowers either when I don’t have a bird visible in my viewfinder!

Life is good.

Mia

Click here to see more of my flower, shrub and tree photos.