My Poppies have changed colour?

[Peter P]

Hi, have a question that has been nagging me for the past week.
From somewhere over the past few years we gained a border of beautiful multi petal Poppies.
Last year we had a mix of reds and pinks, again multi petalled.
I decided to collect the seeds for use this year saving the pink and red in separate containers.
After having a fence erected I had a bare border so decided to sprinkle the seeds along it with Pink at the top and Red at the bottom.
They are up and have just started to bloom and I am a bit shocked as so far I have Mauve single petal and Red multi petal, the pink seem to have changed colour.
I there an explanation for this?

[burnie]

Sounds like cross pollination to me, I guess you have invented a new(ish) variant, or were the originals F1 hybrid seeds that don't usually produce the same youngsters.

[Peter P]

Sounds like cross pollination to me, I guess you have invented a new(ish) variant, or were the originals F1 hybrid seeds that don't usually produce the same youngsters.

The possibility of cross pollination crossed my mind and I cant rule it out but the back garden has produced, from last years self set seeds, identical replicas of last years colours and has done for several years.
I wondered if Poppies were like Hydrangeas where the soil acidity dictated the colour of the flower. That would explain the different colours but not that the Mauve ones only have a few petals per flower and the others (Red) have multi petals. See pictures)
The originals just appeared and we liked them so much that we have just let them do their thing over the years, so to speak. So I haven't a clue if they were F1 hybrids

[Nicos]

Very pretty!

[Modojo]

Hello, I was wondering if you ever got a satisfactory answer to your question. My Poppies have changed colour?

posted 16-07-2020, 04:27 PM

My poppies look like your photos. I've never grown poppies before but last year I picked up a seed head from the side of the road and threw the contents around my garden and on the gravel around my house. I now have tseveral different types of poppies from the same seed head. The most beautiful red poppies I'd ever seen, like the red ones in your picture, growing up through the gravel and little purple ones like your other picture, growing in other areas of the garden where there is more soil.

[Nicos]

Modjo - the original poster hasn’t been on here since posting that question.
However, someone else might be able to help you.

[Jungle Jane]

Hello, I was wondering if you ever got a satisfactory answer to your question. My Poppies have changed colour?

posted 16-07-2020, 04:27 PM

I think burnies answer was satisfactory,I don’t think there’s another answer,with more bee activity you might one day see a half double flowered poppy,a mixture of the double & single poppy

[Snoop Puss]

Hello and welcome, Modojo.

How fascinating! I'm not a botanist, but your post led me towards articles about polyandry in plants.

"In flowering plants, polyandry occurs when the pollen from different potential sires is distributed among the fruits of a single individual, or when pollen from more than one donor is deposited on the same stigma." From https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2333...0same%20stigma.

Apparently poppies cross-fertilise very readily so polyandry must occur quite frequently in popppies, leading to different flower characteristics from seeds from the same flower head.

Someone else with greater knowledge than me might be able to provide us with more information. In the meantime, you need to have made more posts before you can post photos. But when you are able to, it would be lovely to see some pictures. Poppies are beautiful flowers.