Country Life
THE LOVELIEST FLOWER.
; After seeing in perfect bloom a score or more of the plants, I am willing to confess that the most lovely flower in the world is the blue poppy brought back- a few years ago from Asia by
.Mr. Ward. The species, Meconopsis Bayleyi, has still some pf the charm of the unknown. Horticulturists do not even ,yet know in full its nature and habit ; and it has unexpeeted 'variations. But of its beauty, which seems to have grown With English cultivation, there is no mystery. It grows in a
Slender and quaintly pictorial form to a height of over two feet, and the first flower, usually the largest, is at the summit.
The number of petals varies between four and eight. They ;open almost flat. No other poppy is so open and candid, •• and the whole bloom is a good three inches across. The '.colour of the petals is an azure blue, a little like the delphinium 1,4,4 Sutton Place. Seedling," with a faint lilac tinge in the central part ; the middle of the flower a thick boss of old gold, with the green pistil standing well out from the anthem. The
flowers that I saw were rather bluer than the few shown at the R..113., and one young flower with the sunlight behind the petals was as light as 'a wild forget-me-not.
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