Papaver somniferum.

O more interesting flower is to be found in the garden than the poppy, and a certain few kinds are extravagantly beautiful, though lamentably short-lived. It is essentially a classic flower, having from the most early times had a place of honour on the brow of the divine Ceres: for it was not left for the people of this century to discover that poppies love to grow amongst the corn. Our blazing red poppy, that oftentimes, as we hurry along through the sunshine in a railway train, spreads abroad in sheets, and suggests

that we are riding through lakes of blood or seas of fire, according as the light or the fancy may glorify the common-place fact-this scarlet рорру (Papaver rhæas) is, in some respects, distinct from the classic poppy, for it has an urn-shaped capsule, whereas the classic poppy (P. somniferum), which is the common field flower of Greece, has a roundish capsule, and the flowers are as com

monly white as those of the British poppy are commonly red. It is, however, a sportive plant, and is met with in a variety of colours, of which the sample here figured is perhaps the most pleasing. The distinction we appear to make between the field poppies of England and Greece must be understood to apply to them only as common flowers of the field, for our red poppy is to be found in Greece, and the Greek white poppy is to be found in England; but in each case we may say of them they are as strangers and pilgrims.

Our business is to regard the poppy as a familiar garden flower, and we are therefore bound, in the first place, to say that the "pæony-flowered" and the "doublefringed" poppies that are described in the seed catalogues, and that are to be regarded as "garden poppies" in the fullest sense of the word, are really splendid flowers of their class, and perhaps the cheapest splendours available for the English garden. That they last "no time" is rather an advantage than otherwise, because, having startled us by their noble forms and gorgeous colours, they wisely get out of the way to make room for something else, as if well aware that the evanescence of fireworks is one of their charms: for what would become of us if they were to sparkle and crackle all night? But there are other and nobler garden poppies, different in style, but not necessarily more pleasing, but, all things considered, very much to be desired by those eclectic souls who look upon the garden as a sort of open-air museum for things curious and beautiful. We must therefore attempt a little essay on garden poppies.

All poppies, without exception, thrive best when fully exposed to sunshine and air, and on a dry, gritty soil.

They prefer silica to chalk, and hence our red poppy often betrays the poor gravel it is rioting on; and its love of a dry foothold is proved by its happy state when located on the topmost ridge of some old castle wall, where it seems to outdo the snapdragon and the wallflower in its capability of living on nothing. But note what a starved thing it becomes when in this way beating the Frenchman's horse, and learn therefrom the lesson that even a poppy requires a certain amount of wholesome food. With this philosophical observation we conclude the first part of the practical

essay.

It is a characteristic of poppy plants to make tap-roots: hence, in transplanting them, there is usually a season lost, because the inevitable breaking of the tap-roots prevents flowering the next season. But if the transplanting is done with care during moist, cool weather, it will not be attended with loss, because the plants have but to be left alone and they will make new tap-roots to replace those that have been broken by removal. When the plants are raised from seed, only a few should be sown in a pot, and of these the weakest should be removed as soon as possible. By carefully planting out from pots so prepared, serious injury to the tap-roots may be avoided; and that part of the business should be kept in view as of primary importance in the cultivation of poppies.

In the selection of garden poppies, the showy annual kinds should, as remarked above, have special attention; and the shortest way to deal with them is to sow them where they are to stand, and thin them out in good time, so that they do not crowd each other injuriously. The most generally useful of the perennial poppies is the great scarlet, or Siberian poppy (Papaver bracteatum). This is

As

well known for its neat, compact growth of greyish sawtoothed leaves, and its profusion of vivid orange-scarlet flowers in the early days of summer. This forms a deep tap-root, and should be handled with care in removal. it produces new crowns in plenty, the readiest way to increase it is by division; but it seeds freely, and therefore can never be a scarce plant.

In the production of the potent drug, opium, several species of poppy are employed. The "proper" plant is Papaver somniferum, from which opium of the best quality may be obtained, not only in semi-tropical climates, but in England. The drug is obtained by making slight incisions in the green capsules, the result being that a milky exudation appears in the line of the wound, and this being scraped off is crude opium. Of its further preparation, and of its uses and abuses, it will not be expected there should be any disquisition here.