POPPY. 207 



quently regard the ingenuity of the mechanic 

 when he displays the movements of a watch, or 

 a musical box encompassed in a case of dimi- 

 nutive size, but the most complete and costly of 

 these gems are as inferior to the works which 

 nature has employed on the Poppy, as the clum- 

 siest wheel of a country wheelwright is to the 

 finished mechanism of the most celebrated watch- 

 maker. 



The calyx of the Poppy not only shuts in the 

 numerous and large petals of the flower with its 

 innumerable chives bearing their anthers on 

 points as fine as hairs, each anther containing an 

 incalculable number of fertilizing particles, but 

 it also contains the capsule, which in itself can- 

 not be examined without exciting our utmost ad- 

 miration for the wisdom with which it has been 

 formed by the Universal Creator. The capsule 

 is covered by a shield-formed stigma thickly per- 

 forated, so as to admit the fecundating particles 

 of the farina to the channels which are so dis- 

 posed around the eleven cells or chambers of the 

 capsule, that each seed receives its regular por- 

 tion of this matter by means of an umbilical 

 cord, notwithstanding that there are frequently 

 six thousand of these vegetable eggs contained 

 in one capsule. When v\^e reflect that each of 

 these small seeds are so admirably perfect in 



