The poppy
The extensively cultivated opium-providing poppy, Papaver somniferum, is a close relative. The California poppy, Eschscholtzia californica, is a different although related species. This is the poppy inhabiting France in particular, that painters such as Monet or
Van Gogh depicted.
What a flashy flower! It is a joy to see and we know to avoid tasting it — unless we need a sedative. However, at the rate its usual habitat on the edge of fields is dwindling, our grandchildren may have to take to the mountains to enjoy its sight.
The flower is most remarkable. It owes its vivid red — a feature designed to attract pollinating insects — to a combination of anthocyanin pigments and strong scattering of sunlight. Pollinators are bees in Western Europe but beetles in Israel. The light scattering
is due to serpentine cell walls and air cavities within the petals. These are amazingly thin, composed of only three cell layers.
The plant is an annual herb that grows up to 60 cm (2 ft) in height. The stem holds a white latex. In the adult plant, the leaves generally alternate, have a lanceolate blade of variable shape (lobed, dentate, cut into narrow lobes). Capsules, spherical, 1 to 2 cm (0.5-
0.8 in) long contain a large quantity of tiny seeds. A single plant can produce 20,000-50,000 seeds. Each seed, very light, is only 0.5 mm (1/64 th of an inch) in length.
Poppies have become emblematic of soldiers killed in World War I on account of the poem ‟In Flanders Fields‟ written in 1915, during the Ypres battle, by a high-ranking Canadian combatant, Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a physician. The poem and poppy
have become vivid symbols at Remembrance Day in Canada.
Although poppies are becoming a less frequent sight in Flanders and elsewhere.
Their usual habitat, next to cultivated fields, is affected by the use of weedkillers by farmers. Use of powerful herbicides and nitrogen-rich fertilizers has wiped out about 40 % of the species present in agricultural fields a century ago.
In closing, I dedicate this piece to Mrs. Erica Roberts who nurtures a personal cult of the lovely poppy flower!