Poppies

This is the local poppy garden two blocks from the flat. See how the poppies have ably jumped the garden wall and lodged themselves in tiny crevices outside? These sidewalk poppies are also seen some 20m down the road, attesting to a wind-blown method for broadcasting the tiny, flavourful seeds. Despite their hothouse looks, Papaverum are survivors and do well in impoverished chalky soils. Later in the season I intend to scavenge and keep a couple of seedpods for when I have a garden.

As a kid, my mum passed to me several hardbacks from Frank L. Baum's Oz series, and I remember that in the first there's the field of poppies that sedate and distract the travellers from reaching the Emerald City, which in turn is unmasked as all a big front anyway.