I love the ephemeral nature of these fragile flowers, well captured by Robert Burns ‘Pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, the bloom is shed'. The four delicate petals unfold from the bud like crumpled tissue paper and are gone again within a few days.
Common poppies, often called field poppies or corn poppies most likely arrived on our shores mixed in the corn seeds of early Neolithic farmers. With a growth cycle that thrived alongside traditional cereal farming methods they were an integral part of our landscape, featuring in poems, art and children’s play (turning down the petals made the skirt of a poppy doll).
These flowers had numerous regional common names. Many capture the colour; red cap, red dolly and red soldiers. Others eg thunderclap and thunder flower reflect an ancient superstition that picking them would provoke a thunderstorm. Someone must have picked lots this evening!.
They weren’t universally liked of course, Canker-rose from the detriment to crop yields, headache flower as thought to provoke headaches and blind-man, a Wiltshire name warns of blindness from looking at them for too long.
The common poppy’s most powerful symbolism is of course its link to the bloodshed of war, but also renewal. The explosion of colour on a landscape of First World War horror brought hope of recovery and renewal.
Ironically, the end of the Second World War almost led to their demise as herbicides and intensive farming banished them from our fields. But they are back, included in wildflower seeds and germinating naturally on our verges. Poppy seeds can remain viable in the soil for many decades, just waiting for us to give them space. All good news for our pollinators as common poppies top the meadow flower league for pollen production. They are also a food plant for specialized moth caterpillars. Notable species include the Cabbage Moth (Mamestra brassicae) and the Mouse Moth (Amphipyra tragopoginis), which rely on poppy foliage for food. Both available locally!
I should mention our only true native poppy is the yellow Welsh poppy. This is a lovely description Welsh poppy