Courtesy Benjamin R. Miller, CloserLookPhoto.comThe golden poppy, Matilija poppy, and Mariposa lily were nominated as California’s state flower by the California State Floral Society. The golden, or California, poppy won by a landslide and became the Golden State’s official flower on March 2, 1903.
Early sailors are said to have nicknamed California La Tierra del Fuego, or “Land of Fire,” for the rolling foothills carpeted with poppies. At that time, the golden poppy—its most popular name—grew throughout California, but hardly anywhere else.
Native Americans living in the Northern Sacramento Valley boiled and ate the feathery foliage. In Southern California, Spanish Californians and Indians made a hair dressing out of golden poppy oil. It is said that, during the Gold Rush, Indians believed the metal prospectors searched for was fallen poppy petals.
California poppy blossoms are two- to three-inch cups of gold, bronze, scarlet, terra cotta, rose or white. They bloom on plants with silvery green foliage, about a foot high and usually broader than they are tall.
The California poppy is a perennial and is one of the earliest wild flowers to grow in gardens. But it is most beautiful when setting California’s rolling hills ablaze.
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