LXXXVII.— THE WELSH POPPY. 
Meconopsis cambrica Viguier. 
T hose members of the Poppy Family which have a short capsular fruit 
dehiscing by pores are, as we have seen, so closely akin that it is not surprising 
that it was not until the group was carefully monographed at the beginning of the 
nineteenth century that our Welsh Poppy and some nine other species were separated 
from the genus Papaver under the generic name Meconopsis. This was the work of 
Viguier, who, in 1814, published a “ Histoire Naturelle des Pavots,” and was 
endorsed by De Candolle. There are several well-marked characters as to geographical 
distribution and general habit which serve to distinguish these species from the true 
Poppies, apart from the structure of the style and stigma which constituted the 
original ground for their separation. They are perennials ; and they inhabit • 
mountainous regions and moist shady situations, whereas Poppies are annuals 
belonging to lower, drier, and sunnier places. Meconopsis., moreover, has a lemon- 
yellow latex, suggesting affinity with Glaucium or Chelidonium. 
Our only European species, Meconopsis cambrica Vig., has a distinctly western 
type of distribution, being found from the Pyrenees and Western France to Ireland, 
the south-west of England, Wales, Yorkshire, and Westmorland ; and this indicates 
its predilection for a moist climate. In Wales it has been found up to altitudes of 
two thousand feet above sea-level ; but it will not only grow well in lowland 
gardens, but has also escaped from cultivation, and become a roadside weed in many 
places. The Welsh Poppy seems, therefore, to belong to the ancient indigenous 
flora or distributional group known as the Atlantic or Lusitanian flora, and to be of 
an origin geographically distinct from that of its kinsfolk those annual agrarian 
colonists the Poppies. 
Structurally, it is quite sufficiently like the genus Papaver to justify its name, 
which is derived from the Greek ixrjKcov, mekon, a poppy, and oxfjui, opsis, resemblance, 
though its perennial habit is reflected in the presence of a stout rhizome with thick 
rootlets and tufted branches. The aerial stem is about a foot high, branched and 
leafy, soft, brittle, and slightly glaucous, woolly at its base with nearly upright hairs, 
but nearly glabrous above. The leaves are smooth, a rather pale green above and 
generally glaucous on their under surfaces, stalked and pinnate ; the segments being 
either distinct or decurrent on the midrib, ovate-lanceolate in outline, pinnatifid 
and acute. 
From June to August, the plant puts forth its attractive blossoms, each on a 
very long, minutely hairy stalk. Bursting from the hairy calyx, like a butterfly 
from its chrysalis, the four nearly circular, lemon-yellow petals expand into a flower 
from two to three inches in diameter, and deliciously fragrant, although it has no 
honey and matures its anthers and stigmas simultaneously, so that, though visited 
by insects, it may apparently be self-pollinating. In the centre of the many short 
