Herbs or subshrubs, shrubs, or small trees , annual, biennial, or perennial, scapose or caulescent, usually from taproots, sometimes from rhizomes; sap clear, white, or colored, often sticky. Stems leafy or naked, erect, spreading, or decumbent, simple or branching. Leaves basal and/or cauline, alternate to opposite or whorled, simple, without stipules, petiolate or sessile; blade unlobed or with 1-3 odd-pinnate, subpalmate, or palmate orders of lobes. Inflorescences axillary or terminal, unifloral or else multifloral and cymiform, racemose, umbelliform, corybiform, or paniculate, pedunculate or subsessile; bracts usually present. Flowers radially symmetric, pedicellate or sessile; receptacle sometimes expanded and forming cup or ring beneath calyx (only in Eschscholzia , Meconella , and Platystemon ); perianth and androecium sometimes perigynous; sepals caducous, 2 or 3, distinct or connate, usually obovate; petals distinct, usually obovate, mostly 2 times number of sepals, sometimes more or absent; stamens many or 4-15 (only in Meconella and Canbya ); anthers 2-locular; pistil 1, 2-18[-22]-carpellate; ovary 1-2-locular or incompletely to completely multilocular by placental intrusion; placentas 2 or more, parietal; style 1 or absent; stigmas or stigma lobes 2-many. Fruits capsular, dehiscence valvate, poricidal, or transverse, or carpels dissociating and breaking transversely into 1-seeded segments (only in Platystemon ). Seeds usually many, small, sometimes arillate or carunculate.
Herbs, annual, biennial, monocarpic perennial, perennial, or shrubby. Laticifers or elongated idioblasts present. Leaves alternate or in a basal rosette, rarely opposite or whorled, usually without stipules; leaf blade entire to compound. Inflorescences racemes, panicles, dichasia, pseudoumbels, or solitary flowers. Flowers actinomorphic, bisymmetric, or zygomorphic, always bisexual, usually 2-merous, rarely 3- or 4-merous. Calyx caducous, green or petaloid. Corolla choripetalous or quasi-sympetalous, very rarely absent. Anthers opening by slits. Ovary superior, syncarpous with 2 to several carpels; placentation parietal.
Annual, biennial, or perennial herbs with coloured juice, often glaucescent and prickly, or rarely shrubs or small trees; root usually a rhizome or tuber
Sepals 2, rarely 3, green, falling off separately on the opening of the flower or united into a deciduous calyptra
Perianth of calyx and corolla, or rarely the latter absent
Flowers hermaphrodite, actinomorphic, hypogynous or rarely perigynous, mostly solitary, fugacious and visited by pollen-eating insects
Leaves exstipulate, alternate, rarely the floral leaves opposite or whorled, much divided, rarely entire
Petals showy, 4 or 6, rarely 8 or 12, free, imbricate and often crumpled in the bud, deciduous
Stamens numerous, rarely few, free, with filiform filaments; anthers mostly nearly as long as the filaments, 2-celled, dehiscing by longitudinal slits
Fruit a capsule, opening by valves or pores
Ovules numerous, rarely solitary
Seeds small, with minute embryo in fleshy or oily endosperm
Ovary free, of 2 or more united carpels, 1-celled with parietal placentas, or several-celled by the placentas reaching to the middle
Seeds small, numerous; endosperm oily
Ovary syncarpous, 1-locular with parietal placentas (rarely multilocular or spuriously 2-locular) and numerous ovules
Fruit usually a capsule dehiscing by valves or pores
Petals 4–6 (12) free, imbricate, fugacious
Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, usually hypogynous
Sepals 2–3, imbricate, free or calyptrate, caducous
Annual, biennial or perennial herbs (rarely shrubby), usually with white or yellowish latex, with alternate, exstipulate leaves
Annual, biennial or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs, and only 1 tree genus (Bocconia L.), with white, yellow or orange coloured latex
Flowers usually solitary, conspicuous and large, bisexual, regular, hypogynous
Sepals 2–3, imbricate, usually free or calyptrate, caducous
Leaves alternate or rarely whorled, exstipulate, entire to much divided (palmately, pinnately etc.)
Ovary superior, usually unilocular, more rarely with 2 to several locules ; ovules numerous ; placentation parietal
Stigmas opposite or alternate with placentas
Petals (4–)6(–12), more rarely absent, imbricate, arranged in l–2(–3) whorls, crumpled in bud
Stamens free, usually numerous, spirally arranged, rarely 4 and cyclic ; anthers 2-celled with longitudinal dehiscence
Seeds small, numerous, with minute embryo and copious, usually oily, endosperm
Fruit usually a capsule dehiscing by valves or pores, rarely indehiscent
SELECTED REFERENCES
Ernst, W. R. 1962. A Comparative Morphology of the Papaveraceae. Ph.D. dissertation. Stanford University. Ernst, W. R. 1962b. The genera of Papaveraceae and Fumariaceae in the southeastern United States. J. Arnold Arbor. 43: 315-343. Ernst, W. R. 1967. Floral morphology and systematics of Platystemon and its allies Hesperomecon and Meconella (Papaveraceae: Platystemonoideae). Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull. 47: 25-70. Fedde, F. 1909. Papaveraceae-Hypecoideae et Papaveraceae-Papaveroideae. In: H. G. A. Engler, ed. 1900-1953. Das Pflanzenreich. 107 vols. Berlin. Vol. 40[IV,104], pp. 1-430. Fedde, F. 1936. Papaveraceae. In: H. G. A. Engler et al., eds. 1924+. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, ed. 2. 26+ vols. Leipzig and Berlin. Vol. 17b, pp. 5-145. Grey-Wilson, C. 1993. Poppies: A Guide to the Poppy Family in the Wild and in Cultivation. Portland. Gunn, C. R. 1980. Seeds and fruits of Papaveraceae and Fumariaceae. Seed Sci. Techn. 8: 3-58. Gunn, C. R. and M. J. Seldin. 1976. Seeds and Fruits of North American Papaveraceae. Washington. [U.S.D.A. Agric. Res. Serv., Techn. Bull. 1517.] Harms, H. 1936. Reihe Rhoeadales. In: H. G. A. Engler et al., eds. 1924+. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien, ed. 2. 26+ vols. Leipzig and Berlin. Vol. 17b, pp. 1-4. Hutchinson, J. 1925. Contributions towards a phylogenetic classification of flowering plants: V. The genera of Papaveraceae. Bull. Misinform. Kew 1925: 161-168. Kadereit, J. W. 1993. Papaveraceae. In: K. Kubitzki et al., eds. 1990+. The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants. 2+ vols. Berlin etc. Vol. 2, pp. 494-506. Stermitz, F. R. 1968. Alkaloid chemistry and the systematics of Papaver and Argemone. Recent Advances Phytochem. 1: 161-183.