Art By Roger Morgan

The bright orange California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) was named for doctor-naturalist Johann Friedrich Gustav von Eschscholtz (somehow the “t” in his name got dropped), who was the surgeon for the Russian expedition team that dropped anchor in San Francisco in 1815 in a bay surrounded by hills covered with the golden flowers.

Early Spanish settlers called it copa del ora (cup of gold) after the legend that the orange petals, turning to gold, filled the soil with the precious metal.

It was designated the state flower of California in 1903, and is now protected by state law prohibiting anyone from picking or destroying it.

On the hillsides of California, California poppies tend to make their greatest shows on grazed lands since the animals avoid eating the bitter-tasting plants and eliminate most of the poppy’s competition.

Today, Southern California’s best public poppy shows are in three locations: The “Grapevine,” along Interstate 5 where it winds its way past Gorman at the northern edge of Los Angeles County; north of Lake Elsinor, off I-15 at the end of the Lake Street exit; and at the 1,700 acre high desert grassland area, Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in the Mojave Desert.

The indigenous California Indians used this poppy as both a source of food and medicine. Several groups boiled the plant, or roasted it on host stones, to eat as a green.

The Costanoan Indians rubbed a decoction of the flowers in the hair to kill lice; the Indians of Mendocino County used a poultice of fresh root for toothaches and a topically applied extract for headaches and sores; and Cahuilla women used the pollen as a cosmetic and the whole plant as a sedative for babies.

Medicinally, California poppy is a plant with sedative, analgesic and antispastic activities, but unlike the alkaloids of the opium poppy, it does not seem to induce tolerance and dependence. It is touted by some for the treatment of anxiety and to induce sleep in patients affected with insomnia.

California Poppy history and facts courtesy of the Master Gardener.