You may have noticed a lack of superblooms on the Instagram grid this year, no electric orange fields of wildflowers trampled for engagement and baby photos. Below-average rain across the state this winter meant the wildflower explosions we’ve seen in previous years were more muted this spring.
But real California poppy lovers know our scrappy state flower’s beauty lies not in its ability to grow in vast quantities, but to pop up where flowers have no business blooming. In cracks in the sidewalk. Near storm drains. Hidden among weeds and waste. We had more than enough rain in San Francisco to encourage this particular type of poppy peep show.
And for people like me, who love to treat those tufts of electric orange like a treasure hunt, it’s thrilling when the flowers are a little harder to find.
This weekend is the beginning of the end of California poppy season. They’ve been growing mightily since March — their velvety, bright orange petals a soft pop of joy amid the chaos of urban life. But by late May, their distinctive funnel shape — almost like two hands cupped at the wrist in an offering of fluorescent color — begins to lose its form.
Now the real fun begins: the stealing. Specifically, of seedpods, for the purpose of public beautification.
Like a millennial hippie Johnny Appleseed, I save up the poppy seeds and then spread them around the city come fall. In this way, I join the proud ranks of city seed scatterers, including the internet-famous wildflower spreaders Shalaco and Phoenix, who fill a cheese shaker with native seeds that they sprinkle into empty tree wells and bare patches all over the Bay.
Starting in late May, as the poppy petals drop, a pointy, almost vulgar pod emerges, surrounded by a pink skirt. Over time, the pod grows pointy and hard, filling up with tiny seeds. Right now, all over the city, the green seedpods are growing long and heavy, bending poppy stems with their weight.
This is a waiting game. If you pick poppy pods when they are green, the seeds may not be fully ripe yet. Grab ’em as soon as they turn light brown. If left on the stem, they will brown deeply and dry out, eventually splitting from the top and bursting open.
I like to snatch them as soon as their green gets flecked with gray. I line the pods up in a tray under my kitchen window and cover them with an oil splatter guard. As the sun dries them out over the next month or so, an orchestra of sound bursts from the pods as they pop open and reveal the goods.
Now, before you call the cops on me, let me clarify a few things: First, despite what you (and I) may have grown up hearing, it’s not illegal to pick California poppies just because they are the state flower. That’s not a thing. In fact, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has an entire page on its website devoted to debunking this myth.
However, picking any flower parts that don’t belong to you is illegal, so stealing seedpods from poppies growing on public land, or any private land that isn’t yours, is technically a no-go. So, I can’t suggest that you go around the city gathering poppy pods from medians and sidewalk cracks. But I can say I plan to go on a poppy treasure hunt this weekend.
