ON POPPIES 



Therefore, it will be necessary, as preliminary 

 to a specific account of the quest of the blue poppy 

 itself, to give somewhat in detail the story of the 

 development of the ancestral strains of poppies of 

 varied but more usual colors. 



Origin of the Shirley Poppy 



The poppy from which the blue flower was 

 developed is of the variety known as the Shirley 

 poppy. 



This is one of the most interesting and beau- 

 tiful varieties of the species Papaver Rhoeas, the 

 corn poppy of Europe. 



The peculiarity of the Shirley in which it dif- 

 fers from the wild form of field poppy is that it 

 varies in color from the original red to a pale pink 

 and even to a pure white; and that the original 

 black central portion of the flower has been 

 changed to yellow or white. The last-named char- 

 acters are the distinctive ones. The true Shirleys 

 never have the smallest particle of black about 

 them. They may be scarlet or pink or white or 

 variously flecked. But they have no black about 

 them, and they were never yellow, until pale yel- 

 low and pale orange shades have recently arisen. 



This beautiful variety gains enhanced interest 

 when we learn that it was developed as recently 

 as about the year 1880, in the garden of an English 

 clergyman, the Rev. W. Wilks, through a series of 



[107] 



