Our poppies have been numerous and magnificent this year. Here you see two during the light rain that we had yesterday morning:
The day before yesterday, the poppies were waiving in the breezes. There’s a wildness to these plants that seems to reflect their ancient benefits and dangers.
The common names for the basic poppy are “the opium poppy” or “the bread seed poppy,” and their scientific name apparently is Paver somniferum. The plant’s seeds have been ground into meal, pressed into oil, or otherwise used for foods for centuries. The opium and other alkaloids of poppies are used primarily by pharmaceutical companies to create powerful drugs; but, of course, then there is the significant illicit opium market.
As for their ornamental gardening use, there reportedly now are more than 70 species of poppy, in a wide range of colors and shapes. Many garden poppies are bred to reduce opium content to insignificant levels, according to the literature.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 27 and 26, 2024.)