My favourite flowering image. The brightest orange: California poppy flowers as windows into evolutionary developmental genetics

Abstract My favorite flower is the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica Cham., Ranunculales, Papaveraceae, Eschscholzioideae) (Fig. 1). This has such colorful flowers that it is one of the few species that can be observed from outer space. This occurs during the spectacular but rare California poppy super blooms following winters with higher than average rainfall, for example in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve at the western tip of the Mojave Desert. These California poppy super blooms attract large crowds of digital nomads flooding social media with streams of bright orange landscapes, and sometimes trampling down whole stands in the process. Going through old pictures with my parents recently, I realized that I had seen a California poppy bloom back in 1997, when my parents and I were visiting the Western parts of the USA together before I headed back for a PhD position in Germany. Little did I know that years later I would be heavily involved in studying this species.