Fun Facts About Poppies

There are many interesting facts about the poppy flower; they are used in the United States, Canada, the UK and other countries as a flower of remembrance of the soldiers in World War I. They were chosen as a flower of remembrance after Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote a poem In Flanders Fields.

They were also used in the original movie the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her companions the tin man, the scarecrow and the lion walk through a field of poppies that put them to sleep in what the wicked witch hoped was forever. The only ones that fell asleep were Dorothy and the lion, since the tin man did not have a heart and the scarecrow did not have a brain.

This plant is one of the only plants that are used for a drug that was widely accepted just as alcohol was in America’s western frontier, in countries such as the UK in Canada as many people enjoyed visits to the opium den.

Even further back in history there were gods and goddesses who wore or carried poppies such as Hypnos a great god of sleep and the father of medicine Hippocrates spoke of it as a powerful medicine to treat disease and sleep.

This flower that has found its way in many parts history, in movies, in artwork and in medicine and now illegal in most countries because of its opium content, which has one time, was widely accepted.

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