Oreomecon lapponica(Tolm.) Galasso, Banfi & Bartolucci

Lapland poppy

WFO wfo-1000057696 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. a Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-08-08 / obs. 48440298
Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Andrew Bazdyrev
fig. b Andrew Bazdyrev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 113772105
Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Andrew Bazdyrev
fig. c Andrew Bazdyrev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 113772101
Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. d Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48440315
Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. e Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48380820
Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. f Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48440312
Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. g Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48380843
Oreomecon lapponica, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. h Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 48380859

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 15 botanical countries

Regions where Oreomecon lapponica is native: Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, West Siberia, Yakutiya, East European Russia, North European Russia, Norway, Sweden, Alaska, Greenland, Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Québec, Yukon KrasnoyarskMagadanWest SiberiaYakutiyaEast European RussiaNorth European RussiaNorwaySwedenAlaskaGreenlandLabradorNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutQuébecYukon
Native distribution of Oreomecon lapponica, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Greenland GNL
Labrador LAB
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Québec QUE
Yukon YUK
Krasnoyarsk KRA ASIA-TEMPERATE
Magadan MAG
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
East European Russia RUE EUROPE
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Sweden SWE

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 199 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -30.5 °C -16.2 °C -15.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 8.2 °C 14.1 °C 16.2 °C
Annual rainfall 264 mm 986 mm 1,152 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 31 mm 154 mm 180 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 199 research-grade observations of Oreomecon lapponica that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 27 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Oreomecon jugorica (Tolm.) Krivenko
  • Oreomecon laestadiana (Nordh.) Krivenko
  • Oreomecon minutiflora (Tolm.) Krivenko
  • Oreomecon orientalis (Tolm.) Krivenko
  • Papaver chibinense N.Semenova
  • Papaver hultenii var. salmonicolor Knaben
  • Papaver indigirkense Jurtzev
  • Papaver jugoricum (Tolm.) Stankov
  • Papaver laestadianum (Nordh.) Nordh.
  • Papaver lapponicum (Tolm.) Nordh.
  • Papaver lapponicum subsp. jugoricum (Tolm.) Gudoschn.
  • Papaver lapponicum subsp. kvaenangense (C.E.Lundstr.) Ö.Nilsson
  • Papaver lapponicum subsp. lapponicum
  • Papaver lapponicum subsp. occidentale (Lundstr.) Knaben
  • Papaver lapponicum subsp. orientale Tolm.
  • Papaver lapponicum subsp. porsildii Knaben
  • Papaver lapponicum subsp. scandinavicum Knaben
  • Papaver minutiflorum Tolm.
  • Papaver norvegicum N.Semenova
  • Papaver nudicaule subsp. kvaenangense C.E.Lundstr.
  • Papaver pospelovae Barkalov & Chepinoga
  • Papaver radicatum subsp. jugoricum Tolm.
  • Papaver radicatum subsp. laestadianum Nordh.
  • Papaver radicatum subsp. lapponicum Tolm.

and 3 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol PALA9. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.