Argemone ochroleuca subsp. ochroleuca

Argemone ochroleuca subsp. ochroleuca, the Mexican poppy or in Afrikaans bloudissel (blue thistle), is a prickly annual.

It bears solitary stem-tip flowers in spring and summer, pale cream to nearly white in colour. The wedge-shaped petals form a shallow bowl, broadly rounded to flat at their tips. Many delicate, brownish yellow stamens spread around the twice-branched maroon stigma.

This plant hails from Mexico and neighbouring Central American countries. It has become widespread on earth, a weed in parts of South Africa where it grows on roadsides, mining dumps, over-grazed pastures and otherwise disturbed or degraded land (Van Wyk and Malan, 1997; iSpot).