United States / Grow / California poppy

California poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
Photo: (c) Annette Herz, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

California poppy

Eschscholzia californica · Papaveraceae · all Eschscholzia records · Wikipedia

View Saved

Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Form
perennial
Mature height
~1.2 ft
Water need
low
Rated in
California; Montana / Northern Rockies; southern Idaho / Intermountain
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
California; Montana / Northern Rockies; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Typed publication scope: 4 scopes across 4 cited fire sources

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, GA, HI, ID, IL, KY, LA, MA, MI, MO, NC, NE, NH, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, WA, WI, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, CA, NM, NV, OR, TX, UT, WA.
Introduced / established
6 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

8

exact source areas

Current introduced

6

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

8 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Nevada (NV)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Washington (WA)
6 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alabama (AL)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Hawaii (HI)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • New York (NY)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (4)

Corroboration (2 rows from 2 sources)
  • Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants — University of California Forest Products Laboratory · Internal Report 36.01.137 (July 1997) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: ucfpl-berkeley

    “RECOMMENDED by 7 references for use in high fire risk areas.”

    1997 Landscape Vegetation Database row: Eschscholzia californica (California & golden popy). Preserved UCFPL transcription marker: F7.

  • Fire Performance of Common Plants (Guide to Plants) — Diablo Firesafe Council · live page captured 2026-08-29 · original source Corroboration Mirror lineage: ucfpl-berkeley resolves to Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants

    “Table 1: favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references (refs 8,9,11,12,25,42,53)”

    The Diablo Firesafe Council Guide to Plants lists Eschscholzia californica (California poppy) as groundcover, perennial, in Table 1: plants with a favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references. The guide cites 7 of its 57 numbered references for this row (8,9,11,12,25,42,53). The guide states the ranking terms in its underlying references were mostly undefined and makes no attempt to rank within the list, and that fire performance is compromised without maintenance.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Eschscholzia californica (California Poppy). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/eschscholzia-californica/. Last verified 2026-08-23.