And indeed, every flower which unites all these characters, we shall, in the Oxford schools, call 'poppy,' and 'Papaver;' but when I get fairly into work, I hope to fix my definitions into more strict terms. For I wish all my pupils to form the habit of asking, of every plant, these following four questions, in order, corresponding to the subject of these opening chapters, namely, "What root has it? what leaf? what flower? and what stem?" And, in this definition of poppies, nothing whatever is said about the root; and not only I don't know myself what a poppy root is like, but in all Sowerby's poppy section, I find no word whatever about that matter.
10. Leaving, however, for the present, the root unthought of, and contenting myself with Dr. Lindley's characteristics, I shall place, at the head of the whole group, our common European wild poppy, Papaver Rhoeas, and, with this, arrange the nine following other flowers thus,—opposite.
I must be content at present with determining the Latin names for the Oxford schools; the English ones I shall give as they chance to occur to me, in Gerarde and the classical poets who wrote before the English revolution. When no satisfactory name is to be found, I must try to invent one; as, for instance, just now, I don't like Gerarde's 'Corn-rose' for Papaver Rhoeas, and must coin another; but this can't be done by thinking; it will come into my head some day, by chance. I might try at it straightforwardly for a week together, and not do it.
| Name in Oxford Catalogue. | Dioscorides. | In present Botany. |
| 1. Papaver Rhoeas | μηκων ῥοιας | Papaver Rhoeas |
| 2. P. Hortense | μ. κηπευτη[[27]] | P. Hortense |
| 3. P. Elatum | μ. θυλακίτις[[28]] | P. Lamottei |
| 4. P. Argemone | ... | P. Argemone |
| 5. P. Echinosum | ... | P. Hybridum |
| 6. P. Violaceum | ... | Roemeria Hybrida |
| 7. P. Cruciforme | ... | Meconopsis Cambrica |
| 8. P. Corniculatum | μ. κερατίτις | Glaucium Corniculatum |
| 9. P. Littorale | μ. παραλιος | Glaucium Luteum |
| 10. P. Chelidonium | ... | Chelidonium Majus |
The Latin names must be fixed at once, somehow; and therefore I do the best I can, keeping as much respect for the old nomenclature as possible, though this involves the illogical practice of giving the epithet sometimes from the flower, (violaceum, cruciforme), and sometimes from the seed vessel, (elatum, echinosum, corniculatum). Guarding this distinction, however, we may perhaps be content to call the six last of the group, in English, Urchin Poppy, Violet Poppy, Crosslet Poppy, Horned Poppy, Beach Poppy, and Welcome Poppy. I don't think the last flower pretty enough to be connected more directly with the swallow, in its English name.
11. I shall be well content if my pupils know these ten poppies rightly; all of them at present wild in our own country, and, I believe, also European in range: the head and type of all being the common wild poppy of our cornfields for which the name 'Papaver Rhoeas,' given it by Dioscorides, Gerarde, and Linnæus, is entirely authoritative, and we will therefore at once examine the meaning, and reason, of that name.
12. Dioscorides says the name belongs to it "διὰ τὸ ταχέως τὸ ἄνθος ἀποβάλλειν," "because it casts off its bloom
quickly," from ῥέω, (rheo) in the sense of shedding.[[29]] And this indeed it does,—first calyx, then corolla;—you may translate it 'swiftly ruinous' poppy, but notice, in connection with this idea, how it droops its head before blooming; an action which, I doubt not, mingled in Homer's thought with the image of its depression when filled by rain, in the passage of the Iliad, which, as I have relieved your memory of three unnecessary names of poppy families, you have memory to spare for learning.