Perky Poppies - Page 2

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Page 2

Jul 1, 2002

Many seed companies carry them, with the double or fringed varieties being respectively known as paeoniflorum and laciniatum. This probably does not worry the DEA overly much, since it takes between three to five thousand poppy heads to produce a pound of opium!

Somniferum is not the only member of the papaver family to be associated with death. Ever since John McCrae's "In Flander's Fields" spoke of where "the poppies blow/ Between the crosses,row on row," the field poppy (papaver rhoeas) has represented the blood of fallen soldiers. McCrae concluded, "If you break faith with us who die/ We shall not sleep, though poppies grow/ In Flanders fields." So those raising money for veterans' groups will often distribute scarlet paper poppies.

The modern Shirley varieties are descendants of this wilding that robbed nutrients from European wheat fields. Its petals, however, added a pretty color to syrups.

Other poppies include the perennial Oriental and Iceland varieties as well as the California annual. A certain news magazine, running an article on opium poppies, mistakenly pictured a field of the California variety instead. I was probably not the only amused gardener from whom the editors heard. I just hope the piece did not cause a run on the innocent wild eschscholzias!

As with so many plants, opium poppies can be good or bad, depending on how they are used. Without them, we would not have the morphine and codeine so essential in hospitals today. But neither would we have heroin addicts--heroin being a stronger form of morphine.

Painkillers of any sort offer only a surface solution. Just as doctors must discover the causes of the pain to cure it, we will need to get at the causes of drug abuse to end it.

Note: Papaver somniferum photo is by Mimi Kamp, courtesy of the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine at http://www.swsbm.com/HOMEPAGE/HomePage.h... All other photos are by author. All rights reserved.

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