Inflorescences:
Flowers solitary or cymes and racemes

Fruits:
Capsules (poricidal in Papaver); seeds often with fleshy arils forming elaiosomes for ant dispersal

Habit:
Annual or perennial herbs, rarely woody; sap milky or colored, often bright orange, red, or yellow (clear in Fumarioideae), some with alkaloids

Leaves:
Alternate to opposite or whorled, entire to lobed or dissected

Examples:

• Sanguinaria canadensis — bloodroot
  
• Papaver orientale — Oriental poppy
  
• Papaver somiferum — opium poppy
  
• Stylophorum diphyllum — Celandine poppy
  
• Chelidonium majus — Celandine
  
• Meconopsis grandis — blue poppy
  
• Escholtzia californica — California poppy
  
• Argenome mexicana — prickly poppy
  
• Macleaya microcarpa — plume poppy
  
• Bocconia frutescens — tree poppy
  

Fumarioideae:

• Dicentra spectabilis — bleeding-heart
  
• Dicentra cucullaria — Dutchman's breeches
  
• Dicentra canadensis — squirrel-corn
  
• Corydalis species — corydalis, fumewort