THE HORNED POPPY— continued. 
vary considerably in duration, being either annual, biennial, or perennial. The root- 
leaves are numerous, erect, four or five inches long, with a sheathing base and 
lyrately pinnatifid lobing, with teeth pointing in various directions, and rough with 
stout hairs ; and they generally last through the winter. The stem-leaves are sessile 
and cordate at the base, so as to surround half the stem, short, broad, lobed, cut, and 
wavy at their margins, but with less rough surfaces. The flower-stalk is very short, 
smooth, and round ; and when, between June and October, the fine large solitary 
flowers expand, the two rough hairy sepals cohere by their tips and come oflF as a 
cap, while the marvellously crumpled petals smooth themselves out. The four 
golden petals are in two somewhat dissimilar pairs, and are each about an inch and 
a half long. The numerous stamens have short slender filaments, and fall off with 
the petals the day after the blossom first expands. 
The remarkable pod grows to be from six to twelve inches long, giving the 
plant its name of Horned Poppy, the German Horn-Mohn, and its former specific 
name corniculalum. It is rarely quite smooth, never hairy, but generally roughish 
with minute tubercles, terminates in two spreading sessile stigmatic lobes, and curves 
through half a circle. The spongy partition is sometimes incomplete ; and the 
numerous brown seeds are in two rows in each of the two chambers, and are so 
pitted as to present crossing ridges with square depressions. 
The late Lord Avebury, in his “ Contribution to our Knowledge of Seedlings,” 
called attention to the fact that in this species, as in many others, the two cotyledons 
are entirely unlike the subsequently-produced leaves. In germination the cotyledons 
rise above ground, but are small strap-shaped bodies. The succeeding leaves are 
spoon-shaped and become successively more and more pinnately notched, until the 
sixth or seventh leaf assumes very much the form of all the succeeding radical leaves. 
Strikingly beautiful as this species is when growing in its natural surroundings, 
it has but few popular names. The least obvious is, perhaps, Squatmore^ which is 
used in Hampshire and Dorset. Derived from squat, a bruise, and more, a root, it 
points to the use of this plant, like so many other succulent species, and presumably 
its root, to remove the discoloration of the skin by bruises. 
