Poppy, August flower

The poppy and the gladiolus are celebrated flowers of August. Both flowers are the birth flowers of those born in the month of August. It's often twos and I've been focusing on one, although I give a little info on the secondary flower. Gladiolus is also called a "star lily" and very much a Summer garden flower. They come in tall vibrant colours and is really a subtropical and Mediterranean plant. Poppies are native grown flowers to many countries north and south. 

Poppies can grow all over fields, meadows, glens, even on edges of houses, cracks in pavement, sides of roads and wasteland sites. These little blooms are a pleasant sight to see in rough areas. They can grow in urban areas naturally, even at industrial complexes and on rough terrain. 

Mostly associated with the colour red, poppies can come in a lot of vibrant Summer colours from orange, yellow, pink, even blue. Poppies are of the family Papaveroideae that consists of many varieties of poppies. They can appear from Spring and throughout Summer, even growing until Autumn. Poppy seeds are rich in energy such as calcium, and helps give a course of protein. Poppies are used in cooking and medicine. Also a certain type of exotic poppy is a source of bread seed or opium, which is an illegal class A drug. While all poppies have a small amount of narcotics, the opium poppy is the troublemaker in the flower family.

Historically there's been a lot of aggro and war over this poppy. The two violent Opium Wars during the 19th century is an example. Lets go far back in time to ancient Greece. Hippocrates the "father of medicine" (460 BCE) found the opium poppy as a treatment of many diseases, especially in women although he wasn't in favour of using it for recreational drug habits. Alexander the Great spread opium around India and Persia. Opium poppies were not really known during the Dark Ages although Medieval Europeans who sailed to China stumbled upon opium users. Opium appeared in Europe in the 1500's, at the time of Reformation. 

After this, opium was used in medicines and as a lifestyle drug! So much so that it influenced many poets, writers, artists, thinkers, ect. Even children's fiction such as "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll and "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L Frank Baum have surrealism defined by opium poppies. 

Storm Valkyrie