Unfortunately, the photographer can’t remember where she spotted these poppies (probably in the midwestern United States), but, as autumn advances, it’s nice to have a reminder of summer’s flowers.

Papaveraceae informally known as the poppy family (writes Wikipedia), are an economically important family of 44 genera and approximately 770 species of flowering plants in the order Ranunculales.

For your Road Trips Gardener, they invariably conjure up memories of the movie version of “Wizard of Oz”, where Dorothy and her companions fall asleep in a field of poppies on their way to the Emerald City.

As Wikipedia notes, the opium poppy and corn poppy are symbols, respectively, of sleep and death. In Great Britain, Canada, the United States and Australia, the corn poppy is worn in remembrance of World War I. (“In Flanders fields the poppies blow….”)

Do you grow any varieties of poppies in your garden?

(Photo © Susan McKee)