Poppy by Jaco Verheul

About "Poppy"

by Jaco Verheul

About the artwork

Poppy or poppy is a genus of flowering plants. Poppy seeds often germinate in places where the soil has been disturbed, there are sometimes fields of them. Several species occur wild in western Europe, known mainly for their red petals.

A well-known species is the sleeping bulb, Papaver somniferum, from which poppy seeds and opium are extracted. This species is also used as an ornamental plant. The poppy is also called bulb flower in some regions. Opium, morphine and heroin are extracted from the species Papaver somniferum. Opium is the dried white milk juice of this plant that contains a number of alkaloids of which codeine and morphine are especially important. Painkillers such as oxycodone are made from it.

The seeds of the poppy are often used in certain, mainly sweet dishes such as the traditional Polish Makowiec cake. The seed of the sleeping ball is used on sandwiches under the name poppy seed. The juice of the poppy was formerly used as a witch's herb and to colour Edam cheese with it

There were whole fields of poppies blooming on the battlefields in Flanders during World War I, as described by John McCrae in his poem In Flanders Fields. As a result, poppies have become the symbol of World War I in the UK and other Commonwealth of Nations countries. On Remembrance Day, the Commonwealth commemoration of the dead, poppy wreaths are laid at the cenotaph on Whitehall by the monarch and dignitaries, but not real ones, as the petals fall out very quickly.

In iconography, the poppy is the attribute of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep