Welcome, August, and your noble birth flower of remembrance, the Poppy.
The poppy is a member of the Papaveroideae family. The various uses of the poppy plant have been known to mankind for (possibly) 8,000 years. There is evidence that, 6,000 years ago, the Sumerians discovered the narcotic effects of the flowering plant—that is, the reduction of pain and the inducement of sleep. Wild poppies are believed to have originated around the Mediterranean Sea. Later, they would be transported along the trade routes of the Silk Road. Opium (and the "opiate" morphine) is derived from poppies. So are the edible poppy seeds (and their oil) which are used in cooking and baking. In Eastern Europe, breads and pastries filled with poppy seeds are popular. Poppies also are used to produce a latex-like substance which is useful for making certain paints and varnishes.
Poppies also have played a long and significant role in symbolism—in culture, mythology, literature and art. Poppy flowers, due to their narcotic effects, have been used to represent sleep and eternal sleep (death). Gravestones, tombs and monuments sometimes are decorated with poppy blossoms. On some church altars (specifically those which commemorate "All Departed Souls"), poppies can be found carved into the marble. And who can forget The Wizard of Oz, in which the five creatures gallop the final stretch to the Emerald City (through a poppy field), only to find that Dorothy, Toto and the Lion have fallen asleep under the opiate's influence?
In France and Belgium—which became the killing fields for hundreds of thousands of World War One Allied soldiers—the open terrain is dramatically stained-red with poppy blossoms. Numerous foreign servicemen (including Brits, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Americans) died and were buried there—in what has become known collectively as "Flanders Fields."
Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918) was a doctor, soldier, artist, poet and lifelong bachelor. The 42 year old officer was moved to write his famous poem, In Flanders Field, when his handsome, 22 year old friend (and fellow Canadian), Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed in the Second Battle of Ypres on 2 May 1915. McCrae buried Helmer in a nearby field, close to Essex Farm and the Yser Canal. Subsequent fighting, later in the war, destroyed the field. The precise location of Helmer's grave is now unknown. His name is inscribed on a public monument in Ypres, Belgium, and upon a family memorial in Ottawa, Canada.
The following day, 3 May 1915, McCrae penned his enduring poem—though he discarded it, thinking it was not very good. His comrades salvaged the scrap of paper and it was published (anonymously) in the London magazine Punch later that year. McCrae never made it back to Canada, either. He died of pneumonia in France, at the age of 45, on 28 January 1918. It would turn-out to be the final year of World War One. He is buried in the Wimereux Cemetery near Boulogne, France.
Today, in British Commonwealth countries—England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—veterans groups sell artificial poppies in support of veterans' causes. These poppies are worn on the left breast, over the heart, as a visible remembrance of those who gave their lives for their country. They are usually worn during the final weeks of October, up to 11 November, Armistice Day. This custom was inspired by McCrae's poem. New Zealanders also wear such poppies on ANZAC Day, 25 April, the date upon which the Battle of Gallipoli began in Turkey. Approximately a quarter million Allied soldiers (and an equal number of Turkish soldiers) died during this nine month campaign.
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