In message , Janet Tweedy
writes
My Patty's Plum poppy has flowered well, (unfortunately in the pot that
I inadvertently left on top of the rockery as I forgot what was in it!)

Whilst three flowers are of the usual dusky pink, one has unfurled with
the most wonderful deep burgundy coloured petals.

How can I propagate this, indeed can I?

Mostly I take root cuttings but am not sure why one part of the plant
should have developed this way, so I am unsure what portion of the
roots will control that colour.

Does Patty's Plum normally have a varied colouring to the flowers?

Janet

Possibly a sport, but developmental anomalies does occur, especially
among the first few flowers. If it's a sport you could try sowing seed
collected from the anomalous flower, but there's no guarantee that it
would come true. I doubt that root cuttings would be any help to you -
the mutant phenotype probably doesn't extend into the root system. The
question is whether you can vegetatively propagate from green material
of this plant - tissue culture would probably do the trick, but you'd
have to convince someone with the kit that your plant is worth the
effort. The other method of propagation commonly mentioned for Oriental
Poppies is division, but this probably doesn't help either - the plant
will probably die back below the base of the sport. You can watch the
distribution of flower colour on the plant, and see if there's any
evidence of the sport extending into the stock, in which case division
would be possible.

I suggest that you collect seed - it's probably worth a try - and once
you've got some seed look into other means of propagation.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley