A very variable species, especially in size and colour of flower. It appears that the smaller plants have smaller leaves and smaller flowers, i.e. the variation is an overall quantitative and separation of taxa on such characters are of doubtful value. Flower colour also varies from pale yellowish to yellow, orange or saffron colour, and this character is also of uncertain taxonomic importance. As a matter of fact, section
Scapiflora Rchb., of Kom., Fl. URSS. (reprint ed.) 7: 1963, including some 22 species., needs a critical check up, and perhaps some species of this section are just variants of
Papaver nudicaule L., as Popov himself has admitted. The leaf character, pinnatisect with 3 lobes, each lobe often distinctly pinnatifid or pinnatipartite with at least 3 distinct secondary segments, is a fairly constant character throughout the range of the species. Stigmate disc also seem to be a very cosntant character, but the fruit shape is somewhat variable, and the setae seems to be invariably dense on fruits, in our plants.
Popov (in Kom., l.c 603) considered Papaver nudicaule predominantly a central and North Asian species and Papaver croceum primarily Himalo-Altaian and Sino-Japanese. The differences of flower colour (yellow and orange respectively) and leaf segmentation (narrow and somewhat broader respectively) between the 2 species, seem to disintegrate after examining large number of specimens from our area. However, the whole complex needs a thorough study with adequate material from its entire range.