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COMMON RED POPPY
Papaver Rhoeas
Family PAPAVERACEAE
The Common Red Foppy, an annual, one to two feet high, which is so abundant in the cornfields of England and Ireland, less so in Scotland, has branched, bristly stems and pinnate leaves, the points of the lobes directed upward and ending each in a bristle.
The bristles on the flower-stalks stand out at right-angles or nearly so. This is an important character.
The flowers are borne on very long and slender stalks, and consist of two concave sep als which are thrown off by the expanding of the two unequal pairs of crumpled petais. The glorious scarlet flowers are from three to four inches in diameter. The pistil, which afterwards develops into the familiar "poppy-head," is surmounted by the many stigmas which form an eight to twelve rayed disk. The seed capsule is smooth and short, slightly stalked above the receptacle.
The plants contain a milky juice of a narcotic nature. The flowering period extends from June to September.
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They are provided with hooks, prickles and gland-tipped hairs, all variously intermingled. Growing half-erect to a great length. the stem papaver rhoeas then arches over until the tip touches the earth, when roots are formed and a new plant arises. The leaves are compound, usually with three or five ovalleaflets, arranged, pinnately papaver rhoeas, and more or less downy. The midribs and stalks are usually armed with hooked prickles. The white or pink flowers are in panicles at the end of the branches.
After fertilization the flower-s talk erects itself papaver rhoeas and the carpels develop into leathery follicles which split and disclose a large number of greenish-black seeds. Flowering from May to July. Wandering through or round our cornfields any papaver rhoeas time during summer, one is almost sure to find this beautiful flower. It is an annual, tall and erect, the stems clothed with white hairs, and attaining a height of papaver rhoeas four or five feet. The leaves are long and narrow, four or five inches long, and not unlike the leaves of the corn-plants surrounding them.
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