Corn poppy

The wild field poppy enjoys cultivated disturbed soil, which is why sheets of scarlet blooms sometimes appear in corn fields, hence the other common name for the species. The basic form has scarlet single flowers, each petal often marked at its base with a large black blotch. Over a century ago Reverend W Wilks, the vicar of Shirley in Surrey, bred the remarkable race of single and double Shirley poppies, more flamboyant than the species and still popular for trouble-free colour in summer. The blooms, in white, vivid red and all shades of pink in between, have a white, not black, centre.

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