THE YELLOW OR MOVXTAIN POPPY. 39 



one, and warrants our reference to a fact in natural history 

 which is very interesting in itself. 



Our yellow poppy was first discovered in its mountain 

 solitudes, and identified as a true British plant, by the 

 celebrated herbalist and apothecary, Thomas Johnson, 

 in a botanical excursion through Wales. Forsaking 

 the mountain recesses and the haunts of Flora for the 

 more stirring service of Mars, he sacrificed his life to 

 the royal cause, and perished by the sword in the year 

 1644. Parkinson, in 1640, speaks of this poppy in a 

 very matter-of-course way, and tells us where he found 

 it, without in any way suggesting that he had made any 

 rare discovery. It is, in fact, like many other plants, 

 excessively rare if sought for in the wrong places, but 

 common enough when the right localities are visited. A 

 man might search the hedgerows for years, and never find 

 a water-lily, though its silver chalices floated in hundreds 

 in a pool hard by ; and those whose lives are spent chiefly 

 in towns have little idea of the floral wealth of their native 

 land, and imagine, possibly, that some thirty or forty different 

 kinds of plants exhaust the list. 



The mountain poppy grows to a height of some eighteen 

 inches, its general character being erect, and the growth 

 delicate and graceful-looking. The foliage is a bright 

 fresh green, and often slightly hairy. The leaves are 

 borne on rather long stalks, and each leaf is of the form 

 termed pinnate, the three or four pairs of lateral segments 

 being> again deeply cut at their margins: the total result 

 is a very rich-looking feathery leaf. The flowers are 

 large and handsome, as our illustration may in some degree 

 testify, and are borne singly on long flower-stems, that 

 rise well above the mass of foliage whence they spring. 



