Plants slender, to 4 dm, persistent leaf bases few, flexible, lanceolate, ciliate, glabrous to hispid. Leaves to 12 cm; blade green or light green abaxially, dark green adaxially, with 2-3 pairs of primary lateral lobes; surfaces glabrate to densely pilose, trichomes light brown. Inflorescences: scapes glabrate to hispid with appressed and spreading trichomes. Flowers to 5 cm diam.; petals yellow or very rarely pink; anthers yellow; stigmas 4-6, disc conic-umbonate. Capsules clavate, to 2.5 cm, sparsely to sometimes densely strigose. 2 n = 28, 70 (as P . radicatum Rottb. s . l .).

Flowering Jun-Aug. Mesic arctic and alpine tundra and meadows; 0-1200 m; N.W.T., Yukon; Alaska; Russian Far East.

If this taxon is recognized at species rather than subspecies rank, the correct name is Papaver keelei . Specimens of P . paucistaminum Tolmatchew & Petrovsky from Chukotka in the Russian Far East fall within the range of variation described here.