98 PROSERPINA. 



invent one; as, for instance, just now, I don't like Ger 

 arde's ' Corn-rose' for Papaver Rhoeas, and must coin 

 another ; but this can't be done by thinking ; it will 

 come into my head some day, by chance. I might 

 try at it straightforwardly for a week together, and not 

 do it. 



The Latin names must be fixed at once, somehow ; and 

 therefore I do the best 1 can, keeping as much respect for 

 the old nomenclature as possible, though this involves the 

 illogical practice of giving the epithet sometimes from the 

 flower, (violaceum, cruciforme), and sometimes from the 

 seed vessel, (elatum, echinosum, corniculatum). Guard- 

 ing this distinction, however, we may perhaps be content 

 to call the six last of the group, in English, Urchin Poppy, 

 Violet Poppy, Crosslet Poppy, Horned Poppy, Beach 

 Poppy, and Welcome Poppy. I don't think the last 

 flower pretty enough to be connected more directly with 

 the swallow, in its English name. 



11. I shall be well content if my pupils know these ten 

 poppies rightly ; all of them at present wild in our own 

 country, and, I believe, also European in range : the head 

 and type of all being the common wild poppy of our corn- 

 fields for which the name ' Papaver Rhoeas,' given it by 

 JDioscorides, Gerarde, and Linnaeus, is entirely authorita- 

 tive, and we will therefore at once examine the meaning, 

 and reason, of that name. 



12. Dioscorides says the name belongs to it " Sia TO 



TO avQos a7ro/3aX,\e^," " because it casts off its bloom 



