156 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



recently-published volume, "The Spring of the Day/' writes 

 very prettily of the poppy : " The scarlet poppy has a strange 

 way of flowering. At first you see on the top of the stalk a 

 round green ball. By-and-by this ball splits half open, and 

 you see a red streak between the halves. This red streak 

 increases, and at last opens altogether, and forms a round 

 scarlet cup freely exposed to the sunshine. The two green 

 leaves, called the calyx, that closed round it when it was in the 

 bud, then fall off, and leave the stalk and the flower quite 

 bare. The blossoms can now do without them. It needed 

 them when it was young, to cherish it and protect it from the 

 weather ; and now it can manage for itself, and therefore it 

 drops them, and you see them lying on the ground at the foot 

 of the stalk poor shrunken, withered leaves, while the blossom 

 is flaunting its scarlet glory in the gay sunshine. The poppy, 

 as you all know, is the flower of sleep and forgetful ness, and 

 it acts according to its supposed nature in rejecting and for- 

 getting what was once part of its life." How many have 

 noticed this habit of the poppy ? almost the only flower to 

 discard the guardian and protector of its tender youth. 



