It's been legal to pick California golden poppies this whole time

California's state flower, the golden poppy. California's state flower, the golden poppy. Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close It's been legal to pick California golden poppies this whole time 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

There was a common rumor popular among millennial children growing up in the Bay Area: it's illegal, and maybe even punishable by law, to pick a golden poppy.

And it wasn't just told to 90s kids. The myth apparently goes back quite far — some of our commenters have reported hearing the rumor as far back as the 50s.

The vibrant amber state flower of California covers hills in the more wildly-growing, drier areas of Northern California, but for many kids, they were off limits for plucking.

Apparently, as a 2015 Golden Gate Parks Conservancy post outlines (revived by a Redditor this week), it's not at all illegal to pick them, despite what your parents or friends said when you were a kid.

That, however, doesn't mean they're easy to get. According to the Annette Russell, Seed Collection Ecologist at the Marin Headlands Native Plant Nursery, poppies are "surprisingly out of reach for many people," mostly growing on the sides of highways, rocky hills, or other difficult-to-traverse and otherwise dangerous grounds. As she writes, "It is, in the truest sense, a wildflower."

So where did the rumor come from?

As Russell points out, the flower tends to grow on federal or state-owned land — as in the case of its flourishing near freeways and in national parks — which means it often grows on federal grounds. In those cases, it is illegal to pick them, because they are government property.

If you do pick a poppy on federal land, as KPIX meteorologist Roberta Gonzales writes, there may be criminal repercussions. "If a poppy or any other flower is on school, park, a median or even outside a courthouse, DO NOT pick or hurt the flower," she says in a post. "Harming the flower or plant life could be considered a misdemeanor offense, and you can be fined up to $1000 and as many as six months in jail."

And that last bit is serious business. It seems that somewhere down the line, a parent told a child a little fib, and it took on a life of its own as a long-standing urban myth. While not at all illegal in the basic sense — there is certainly no issue with growing your own poppies — the silly rumor still seems to scare some kids away from flower-picking, even to this day.