NAME IN OXFORD CATALOGUE. DIOSCORIDES. In present Botany. 1. Papaver Rhoeas [Greek: mekon rhoias] Papaver Rhoeas 2. P. Hortense [Greek: m. kepeute][27] P. Hortense 3. P. Elatum [Greek: m. thulakitis][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 [Greek: m. keratitis] Glaucium Corniculatum 9. P. Littorale [Greek: m. paralios] Glaucium Luteum 10. P. Chelidonium Chelidonium Majus {98} 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 Linnaeus, 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 "[Greek: dia to tacheos to anthos apoballein]," "because it casts off its bloom {99} quickly," from [Greek: rheo,] (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. "[Greek: mekon d' hos heterose kare balen, het' eni kepoi] [Greek: karpoi brithomene, notieisi te eiarineisin] [Greek: hos heteros' emuse kare peleki barunthen.]" "And as a poppy lets its head fall aside, which in a garden is loaded with its fruit, and with the soft rains of spring, so the youth drooped his head on one side; burdened with the helmet."