V. PAPAVER RHOEAS. 91 



doubt whether an iris had three of its leaves smaller than 

 the other three, because an iris always completes itself to 

 its own ideal. Nevertheless, on examining various pop- 

 pies, as I have walked, this summer, up and down the hills 

 between Sheffield and Wakefield, I find the subordination 

 of the upper and lower petals entirely necessary and nor- 

 mal ; and that the result of it is to give two distinct pro- 

 files to the poppy cup, the difference between which, 

 however, we shall see better in the yellow Welsh poppy, 

 at present called Meconopsis Cambrica ; but which, in 

 the Oxford schools, will be < Papaver cruciforme ' ' Cross- 

 let Poppy,' first, because all our botanical names must 

 be in Latin if possible ; G reek only allowed when we can 

 do no better ; secondly, because meconopsis is barbarous 

 Greek ; thirdly, and chiefly, because it is little matter 

 whether this poppy be Welsh or English ; but very need- 

 ful that we should observe, wherever it grows, that the 

 petals are arranged in what used to be, in my young days, 

 called a diamond shape,* as at A, Fig. 10, the two narrow 

 inner ones at right angles to, and projecting farther than, 

 the two outside broad ones ; and that the two broad ones, 

 when the flow r er is seen in profile, as at B, show their 

 margins folded back, as indicated by the thicker lines, and 

 have a profile curve, which is only the softening, or melt- 

 ing away into each other, of two straight lines. Indeed, 

 when the flower is younger, and quite strong, both its pro 



* The mathematical term is 'rhomb.* 



