Arctic Poppy

Did you know

• The flower is heliotropic — it tracks the sun across the sky to warm its reproductive parts.
• Its parabolic petals focus sunlight onto the central pistil, raising the bloom's temperature several degrees above ambient.
• It's one of the northernmost flowering plants, found within a few hundred miles of the North Pole.
• Insects bask inside the warm flower, which helps boost pollination in the cold Arctic.
• Some populations have been growing in the same gravel patches since the last ice age.

Color meanings

Uses

• alpine gardens
• rock gardens
• tundra ecology