POPPIES 



65 



Poppies. 



BY MRS. MARY EARLE HARDY, GRAND 

 RAPIDS, M ICB [G W. 



The writer knows a field in the 

 northern border of the Western Re- 

 serve in Ohio, where, within the mem- 

 ory of the oldest inhabitant, never a 

 poppy had grown. When the plow- 

 share turned its turf, hundreds of pop- 



the brave, and that after the next sum- 

 mer's plowing-, the field broke into bil- 

 lows of red poppies 



Note the cross in the heart of the 

 poppy. It is no heathen flower. 



Scarlet poppies, abundant in Europe 

 and Asia, are in song and story. They 

 are called "corn rose" in some parts of 

 England, and in German fields, they 



CALIFORNIA POPPIES. 

 Photograph by Geo. G. McLean, Carpinteria, California. 



pies sprang into life, as if their sealed 

 tombs had been suddenly opened, and 

 their resurrection morn had come. 



The late William Eleroy Curtis in 

 his book entitled "From the Andes to 

 the Ocean" has recorded a similar re- 

 markable phenomenon as having oc- 

 curred in South America. Great and 

 unusual rains had fallen. The moun- 

 tains sent down torrents that plowed 

 their way to the sea, and everywhere 

 from the Andes to the ocean the des- 

 ert lands were drenched. A wild vege- 

 tation sprang up, where but drifting 

 sands had been, and the flowers pro- 

 duced in the greatest profusion were 

 poppies. The desert was ablaze with 

 them. Where the seeds came from — 

 nobody knows. 



We are familiar with the page of 

 history, in which it is written that the 

 field of Waterloo drank the blood of 



are rivals of the blue corn flower. 



Oriental poppies were believed to be 

 favorites of the sun god and to repre- 

 sent his splendor. They held up 

 flame colored cups to catch his golden 

 nectar, and when one of them was 

 plucked, if a word of gratitude for the 

 poppy and that which it typified were 

 spoken, a blessing was believed to 

 follow. 



The Alps have white poppies, spot- 

 less as if born of snows. England has 

 its blue poppy — the only blue poppy 

 known. Both of these varieties we see 

 in our American rock gardens, where 

 they thrive and are effective. 



The opium poppy is the oldest of 

 cultivated poppies. It is a genus of 

 half a hundred species. Its sedative 

 properties seem to have been long un- 

 derstood. Virgil tells of its sleep pro- 

 ducing power. 



