AN ISLAND GARDEN 85 



this, lifting their treasured splendor yet safe 

 within its clasping calyx to be ready to meet the 

 first beams of the day. 



The Orientals are glorious, even in the vic- 

 torious family of Poppies. Ruskin has a chapter 

 on " The Rending of Leaves." I always think of 

 it when I see the large, hairy, rich green leaves 

 of this variety, which are deeply " rent," almost 

 the whole width of the leaf to the midrib. These 

 leaves grow somewhat after the fashion of a Dan- 

 delion, spreading several feet in all directions 

 from the centre, which sends up in June immense 

 flower-stalks crowned with heavy apple-like buds, 

 that elongate as they increase in size, till some 

 morning the thick calyx breaks and falls, and the 

 great scarlet flags of the flower unfold. There 

 is a kind of angry brilliance about it, a sombre 

 and startling magnificence. Its large petals are 

 splashed near the base with broad, irregular spots 

 of black-purple, as if they had been struck with a 

 brush full of color. The seed-pod, rising fully an 

 inch high in the centre, is of a luminous, inde- 

 scribable shade of green, and folded over its top, 

 a third of its height, is a cap of rich lavender, 

 laid down in points evenly about the crown. On 

 the centre of this is a little knob of deep purple 

 velvet, from which eleven rays of the same color 

 curve over the top and into each point of the 

 lavender cap. And round this wonderful seed- 

 pod, with its wealth of elaborate ornament, is a 

 thick girdle of stamens half an inch deep, with 

 row upon row and circle within circle of anthers 

 covered with dust of splendid dusky purple, and 



