Papaver sect. Meconidium Spach

Elvebakk, Arve & Bjerke, Jarle W., 2024, Papaver recircumscribed: A review of neighbouring Papaveraceae genera, including Afropapaver nom. et stat. nov. and Oreomecon, a large, Arctic-Alpine genus, PhytoKeys 248, pp. 105-188 : 105-188

7.5. Papaver sect. Meconidium Spach , Hist. Nat. Veg. Phan. 7: 21. 1839

Type species.

Papaver armeniacum (L.) DC. Prodr. 2: 79. 1821. [≡ Argemone armeniaca L. , Sp. pl.: 509. 1753].

Notes.

Kadereit (1993), in his monograph for the section of orange-flowered, biennial species with valvate capsules, accepted four species in addition to five subspecies. In addition, Tavakkoli (2012) and POWO (2023) accepted Papaver acrochaetum Bornm. ex Fedde. The species P. sjunicicum M. V. Agab. was described by Aghababyan & Fragman-Sapir (2007) from altitudes above 3200 m in the Zangezura area of Armenia. It was listed as a data-deficient species from Armenia in the Red List treatment for the widely-defined Caucasus Region ( Solomon et al. 2014). POWO (2023) considers this species a synonym of P. armeniacum subsp. armeniacum (L.) DC, which is a taxon with several other synonyms that are still widely in use, for example, P. caucasicum M. Bieb. , P. fugax Poir. and P. triniifolium Boiss. Aghababyan & Fragman-Sapir (2007) treated Papaver sjunicicum as different from P. zangezuricum Mikheev , another species from 3500 m alt. in the same area of Armenia, see Mikheev (1993). The latter species is accepted by POWO (2023) and both are accepted here.

Papaver shepardii Post ex Dinsm. from southern Türkiye near the border of NW Syria was considered a Critically Endangered ( CR) species by Cullen (1965). It is probably identical to P. persicum ssp. tauricola (Boiss.) Kadereit. Papaver shepardii was not mentioned by Kadereit (1993). It was considered unresolved by Aghababyan (2011 b) and is not accepted here, although it was so by POWO (2023). Our summary thus shows that this section is comprised of seven species and five subspecies.