LXXXV.— THE HORNED POPPY. 
Glauchim flavum Crantz. 
G LAUCUS, the son of Neptune and a sea-nymph, loved only to haunt the 
shores of his father’s realm. His clothing was of the colour of the waters 
of the ocean, the grey which is neither blue nor green and is worn by so many of 
his friends and neighbours, with an upper robe of yellow betokening his royal birth. 
The desire of his heart was Scylla, the stony-hearted, who became a rock ; and the 
love-sick demi-god wandered along the beach, close to the margin of the sea, 
bearing constantly a long curved fishing-rod. 
To pass from mythology to fact, in the words of the Laureate : — 
“ A poppy grows upon the shore 
Bursts her twin cup in summer late : 
Her leaves are glaucous green and hoar, 
Her petals yellow, delicate.” 
The genus Glaucium^ first thus appropriately named, from the Greek yXavKo<;, 
glaukos, blue-grey, by Tournefort, is closely allied to Chelidonium. Like that genus, 
it has a fleshily enlarged tap-root, glaucous foliage, a pale orange latex, and an 
elongated fruit ; while the parts of its flower agree in number, arrangement, and 
fugacious character with those of the inland hedgerow plant. It comprises about a 
dozen species of maritime plants, chiefly natives of the Mediterranean region, and 
thus represented in three continents. They have pinnately-lobed leaves, of which 
the upper cauline ones are sessile and amplexicaul : their flowers are larger and 
more handsome than those of Chelidonium ; a spongy partition extends from their 
placentas, dividing the long ovary into two chambers ; and the seeds, which are 
imbedded in it, have a pitted surface but no adherent raphe. 
Our one British species, which has also been known under the specific names 
luteum, fulvum, cornutum, and corniculatum, signifying either yellow, as does the 
flavum of Crantz, or horned, is a typical halophyte or sea-shore plant. Like most of 
the Poppy t'amily, it is a lover of the sun, tolerant of a very hot and dry surface- 
soil and of much physiological drought, but less so of frost. In shingle or loose 
sand, saturated with sea-water, it is anchored deeply by its long tap-root ; and its 
thick fleshy leaves are protected from much transpiration by a thick cuticle, the 
comparatively small number of their sunken stomata, and by the waxy excretion 
which gives them their glaucous hue. Drenched frequently by spray, or even 
occasionally submerged at high tide, it occurs scattered over the lower sea-ward 
sand-dunes or shingle beach, with thickets of Sea Elite [fluada fruticosa Forskal), 
carpets of Sea Campion and Sea Purslane {flilene maritima Withering and Honkenya 
peplo'ides Ehrhart), and patches of Sea Holly {Eryngium maritimum Linn6), Thrift, 
Sea Lavender, and Stone-crop. 
Its stems are much branched and spread out in a more or less prostrate manner 
for two or three feet. They are round, glaucous, and smooth, or slightly hairy, and 
