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by Florence Wickramage

The red Poppy flower first sprang up in the Flanders fields in France which were barren and waste lands which were used as a battlefield where thousands of soldiers laid down their lives in the first World War.

History reveals that in ancient Cathay, long before Marco Polo first saw its wonders and before Confucius lived to spread his philosophy of gentleness and understanding, there grew a flower from which was distilled a potent drug. It was white in colour and it was known as the "flower of forgetfulness". Timeless centuries passed while dynasties and rose and fell. Babylon crumbled into dust. The Pharaohs lived their brief span and passed on. Europe emerged from her savagery and fair cities spread across her smiling landscape.

Awesome symbol

The white flower came to be known as the "White Poppy" and out of the land of the "flower of forgetfulness" came Genghis Khan with his ravaging hordes of soldiers.

They swept westwards bringing death and terror in their wake. Wherever they passed, men died, and wherever their blood spilled the white poppy bloomed.

Legend says that a strange transformation had taken place. The white Poppy of forgetfulness had turned blood red and in the centre of each flower was outlined a cross, as though nature herself was crying in protest at this wanton slaughter of the innocents.

Recorded information says that through the centuries an even stranger event had occurred. Emperors and kings had marched their armies across Europe in bloody conflict and everywhere on battlefields which before had been bare wastes, poppy flowers bloomed depicting the graves of men who had died.

Lord Macauley had been the first to draw attention to this strange symbol and had also been the first to suggest that the poppy should be known as the "flower of sacrifice and remembrance". While being in charge of a small first aid post in Ypres, during World War I, Colonel John McRao pencilled the following famous verses in his despatch book (excerpts):

"In Flanders field the

Poppies blow

Between the crosses,

row on row,

It marks our place.........

McRao throws up a

challenge to the living

".....Take up our

quarrel with the foe, `

To you from failing

hands we throw

The torch; be yours

to hold it high

If ye break faith with

us who die,

We shall not sleep,

though poppies grow

In Flander's field".

An American Lady Miss Moina Michael read the poem and being deeply moved wrote a reply in which she promises to keep faith by wearing a Poppy and says: "....And now the torch and Poppy red, Wear in honour of our dead, Fear not that ye have died for naught; We've learned the lesson that ye taught in Flanders' fields".

The Poppy

The Poppy (family Papaveraceae) is regarded as an ornamental long living perennial plant which has over 50 species. In the Middle Eastern countries Poppies grow in a wide range of colours from scarlet, salmon pink, white or red blooms on a single stalk. The white and red or white or pink Shirley Poppy is seen as an annual variety. The Iceland Poppy from Arctic North America is a short-lived perennial plant with fragrant white, orange, reddish or bi-coloured blooms. The Peacock Poppy is from Afghanistan which is an annual flower sometimes dark spotted and scarlet.

The Poppy family is well represented in Western North America, specially in California, where 20 native species are found. The California Poppy is an annual with brilliant orange coloured flowers extensively found in California, Australia and India.

White fragrant flowers are native to South West Northern America while the pure white Snow Poppy is found in China.

Purple-centred, brilliant red Poppy is found in North America while several Poppy species are found native to Greece and the Orient.

Remembrance

"From 1914 to 1918 vast armies gathered in Europe on two sides of the double lines of trenches. For the last two of these years, hundreds of thousands of American boys joined the allied forces in their muddy holes of death and destruction.

The only bright colour on the shell-torn landscape was the Poppy. This tenacious little flower grew on the edges of trenches, with the ragged shell holes and on the graves of men buried in the fields".

We are now called upon to wear a Poppy, in honour of all war heroes who have sacrificed their today for our tomorrow. It is not charity but our duty.

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