PAP AVER RUOEAS. 



Tl 



tion, however, we may perhaps be content to call the six last 

 of the group, in English, Urchin Poppy, Violet Poppy, Cross- 

 let 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 pop- 

 pies 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 cornfields for which 

 the name ' Papaver Rhoeas,' given it by Dioscorides, Gerarde, 

 and Linnaeus, is entirely authoritative, and we will therefore 

 at once examine the meaning, and reason, of that name. 



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

 TO avBos aTro/^aAAeiv," " because it casts off its bloom quickly," 

 from pew, (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 

 I doubt not, mingled in Homer's thought with the image of 

 its depression when filled by rain, in the passage of the Diad, 



| e'TT/uTjfces ex ow<ra T ^ Kf<f>a\toi>. Dioscorides makes no effort to distin- 

 guish species, but gives the different names as if merely used in differ- 

 ent places 



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

 " 5uk T& falv a.vT?)s rby OTTOJ/" "because the sap, opium, flows from it." 



