72 The Poppy. 



That Ceres with my flower is grieved 

 • Some think, but they are much deceived, 



For where her richest corn she sows 

 The inmate Poppy she allows, 

 Together both our seeds doth fling, 

 And bids us both together spring. 



The ancients had this opinion, for seeds of the Corn Rose, as 

 it was called, were offered up in the sacred rites of Ceres, to en- 

 sure the prosperity of the corn. Phillips says, that where it 

 abounds, it denotes a light and shallow soil, and it is singu- 

 lar, that in England, when such land is ploughed up in the 

 spring, when there can be no Poppies to scatter their seed, and 

 although it be where none have ever been seen, yet it is a 

 great chance that such lands shall not be covered with these plants 

 during the summer. He frequently observed this phenomenon 

 when lands were first broken up, and even in situations distant 

 from other corn lands saw the plains glow with the red petals of 

 the Wild Poppy. The Persians still continue to sprinkle the 

 seeds of Poppies on their rice and wheaten cakes, which is also 

 frequently practised in Germany, where the seeds are given as a 

 cooling diet to singing birds. The stem of this plant is covered 

 with straight spreading hairs, the leaves deeply gashed, the parts 

 ranged opposite each other. It has a large number of flowers. 

 The capsules are sleek, and nearly globular. It blossoms in June. 

 We saw a number of these carefully planted in the Cemetery at 

 Sag Harbor last summer, round an infant's grave, by the be- 

 reaved parent, mournfully and gracefully hanging down their 

 heads to express extreme sorrow. 



The generic name is derived from pap or papa, the food of 

 babies, because the flowers or fruit was formerly, and the custom 

 is not in disuse, mixed with it when given to children for the 

 purpose of procuring sleep. It is in the Class Polyandria : Or- 

 der Monogynia. The characters are — calyx two-leaved, cadu- 

 cous ; corol, four-petalled ; stigma, a broad disk, with radiating 

 lines ; capsule one-celled, dehiscent by pores under the perma- 

 nent stigma. Every one of the species is able to afford the 

 Opium of commerce in a greater or less quantity ; but the plant 

 from which it is commonly derived, is the Pap aver Somnifeiium 

 — White Poppy, which has two varieties, derived from the color 

 of the seeds. 



