110 PROSERPINA. 



cruciforme), and sometimes from the seed vessel, 

 (elatum, echinosum, corniculatum). Guarding 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. 



ii. 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 

 Dioscorides, Gerarde, and Linnzeus, is entirely autho- 

 ritative, and we will therefore at once examine the 

 meaning, and reason, of that name. 



1 2. Dioscorides says the name belongs to it " Sia 

 to ra^ecos to avdos a-rro^dXkeLv," "because it casts off 

 its bloom quickly," from pea), (rheo) in the sense of 

 shedding.* And this indeed it does, — first calyx, 

 then corolla; — you may translate it 'swiftly ruinous ' 

 poppy, but notice, in connection with this idea, how 

 it droops its head before blooming ; an action which, 



It is also used sometimes of the garden poppy, says Dioscorides, 

 " 5ia to peie ^f avrijs jiv iirbv" — "because the sap, opium, flows 

 from it." 



