A Monthly Magazine of Natural History 



Paet 47. OCTOBER, 1883. Yol. 4. 



POPPIES. 



By J. P. SouTTER, Bishop Auckland. 



/DROWNING the barley and crowning 

 the wheat, 



And the children fair in the village street, 

 They'll cluster and crowd round the reaper's 

 feet- 

 Poppies, poppies everywhere ! 



Fringing the hedges that stand by the sea, 

 Fringing the pathway, the meadow, and lea, 

 Shedding their brightness wherever they be. 



Poppies, poppies everywhere ! 

 Catching the rays of the sweet setting sun, 

 They shine all the brighter when noontide 

 has run, 



And stand like the gifts of a summer day 

 done — 



Poppies, poppies everywhere ! 



Brought to the city, bright memories they 

 To the sick and the stranger, of childhood's 

 day 



When they culled them at home 'mid frolic 

 and play — 

 Poppies, poppies everywhere." 



The Natural Order Papaveracea, 

 which includes about twenty genera 

 and seventy species, is represented in 

 I Britain by five genera and ten species. 

 This paper will deal only with the true 

 poppies fPapaver), of which we have 

 'five species with two or three less well- 

 marked varieties. Everybody knows 



the common poppy so conspicuous in 

 our cultivated fields, compelling notice 

 by its gaudy-coloured blossoms, which 

 it flaunts in the faces of all passers, 

 from amidst the standing corn. The 

 four common species having any claim 

 to be considered indigenous are gener- 

 ally distributed and often too abundant 

 in arable land. They may readily be 

 grouped into two classes by the shape 

 and coveriog of the capsule or seed- 

 vessel. Papaver argemone has by far 

 the smallest flowers, with a club-shaped 

 capsule with erect hairs. P. liyhriduinj 

 which is much rarer, has the capsule 

 roundly egg-shaped with spreading 

 bristly hairs. In the next species, P. 

 dtihium, the club-shaped capsule is 

 quite devoid of hairs (glabrous), whilst 

 the hairs on the flower-stalk are closely 

 pressed to the stem. This is perhaps 

 the most abundant poppy; but it is 

 closely run for this unenviable notoriety 

 by the next species, P. Rliceas. The egg- 

 shaped capsule of which, is glabrous, 

 whilst the flower-stalk is furnished with 

 spreading bristles. Of course, there 

 are various other differences, such as, 

 in the two first species the rays of the 

 spreading shield-like stigma average 



