70 THE POPPY. 



calyx is like that of Sanguinaria. The corolla (white or 

 red) consists of 4 broad petals, thin and fragile, crumpled 

 in the bud and opening convulsively. * The stamens are as 

 in Sanguinaria, but more numerous. There is but one pis- 

 til, a large, turgid, green ovary capped by a broad, sessile 

 stigma, with no style. The rays marking the top of the 

 stigma, indicate so many simple stigmas and carpels united 

 into this one compound pistil. 



The Fruit is a capsule, 1 -celled, crowned with the broad, 

 persistent stigma. It opens by as many little valves under 

 the margin of the stigma as it has rays one to each carpel, 

 for the escape of the seeds. These are exceedingly small 

 and numerous. Linnaeus counted 10,000 in a single 

 capsule. 



The Name of the Poppy family is the ancient Koman 

 one, Papaver. It is said to come from papa, the Celtic 

 word for pap, because its capsules were formerly given to 

 infants with their food as a soporific. Among the 30 species 

 of the Poppy, red is the prevailing color. Three kinds, at 

 least, with large, brilliant scarlet or crimson petals frequent 

 our gardens and fields. One of these, P. Rlieas, the Corn 

 Poppy, is portrayed in Fig. XIV. f Another species, the 

 Opium Poppy, has white flowers. It is appropriately 

 named P. somniferum (somnus, sleep, fero, I bear). 



The Order or tribe of the Poppyworts PAPAVEKACE^:, 



* These petals are so delicate that even when we cut them with scissors it is 

 almost impossible to keep them from crumpling. But the Poppy bee having dug a 

 hole three inches deep in the ground and smoothed and polished the sides, hangs the 

 walls of its little home with tapestry, using these Poppy petals, which it employs 

 with so much skill that they are smooth as glass. 



t The Ancients believed that the presence of the Corn Poppy in their fields was 

 necessary to the prosperity of the Corn (Wheat) ; hence the seeds were among the 

 sacred offerings to Ceres, and her garlands were composed of Wheat-stalks with their 

 bearded heads intertwined with Red Poppies. " The term rheas," says William Tur- 

 ner, who wrote in 1551, "is given because the flower fallith awaie hastilie." This 

 Poppy is so abundant in England that it is dreaded by the farmers as a pestiferous 

 weed. 



