Poppy The Plant

The poppy is a 4 to 6 petal flower that is shaped like a bowl on the top of long stems and belongs to the botanical family Papaveraceae. The many different species come in colors of red, pink, yellow, orange and white, along with both pastels and deep hues of these colors. They are a favorite of gardeners worldwide for their bowl shaped beauty each spring and early summer when they bloom.

The poppy has a long history of use for symbolism, with the red poppy flower being used to honor the soldiers and veterans and are still used today in the form of plastic red poppies. The poppy has been written about in the poem In Flanders Fields, it has been the subject of paintings and symbolized in other ways.

There have been poppies used as a symbol of death and of sleep in Greek and Roman times. They were used as offerings at the tombstones of the dead to symbolize eternal rest and were a revered flower by these ancient people.

There is also the opium poppy that is grown to take the alkaloids from the pod to manufacture painkillers and the seeds are collected and used in baking and cooking.