Both Argemone

Argemone albiflora vs Argemone ochroleuca

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 3 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 3x by our model Same genus Argemone Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Argemone albiflora, photographed by Brady Reed
fig. a Brady Reed, CC0 1.0

Argemone albiflora

white prickly poppy
Argemone ochroleuca, photographed by 雲一百香果
fig. b 雲一百香果, CC BY 4.0

Argemone ochroleuca

Mexican Poppy

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Argemone ochroleuca Argemone albiflora 3 of 19 (16%)

Measured on 38,949 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Papaveraceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Both Argemone. Congeners, which is why this is hard.
Flowering Peaks in May versus January. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 200 and 709.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages