Fascinating Poppies

There are Papaver Orientale appearing in lots of places around my garden – mostly self-seeding and I thought they were all the same. But today I looked more closely and there seem to be several different ones. I am fascinated with the details on the top of the seedheads as well as the markings on the petals. Here are some examples:

Poppy 1 – Strong red, six black marks on the petals and a very intricate seedbox

This one seems to be the dominant one – the six marks inside are very pronounced. It is very large – some of the flowers are the size of a side-plate.

Poppy 2 – Four black petal marks and a different seedbox pattern

This one is slightly smaller and has only four of the characteristic black marks and the pattern on the seedbix is less complex.

Poppy 3 – quite a bit smaller than Poppy 1 – but with the same markings.

This one does not flop the way Poppy 1 does – and the seedbox pattern is very simple.

Poppy 4 – more orange than red, this poppy has a more domed seedbox

So the colour of this one is quite different to the others. It is one of the smaller ones but the seedbox is almost going to a point!

I received poppy seeds from several gardening friends with names like “Beauty of Livermere” and “Ladybird” but I am not able to identify which ones I have! I would appreciate anyone thorwing some light on this mystery for me!