poppy

Having decided that yesterday's weasel who turned up on the terrace had to be called Pop(py) for obvious reasons, there was, alas, no repeat appearance. So I had to turn the flash light onto a conveniently available Iceland Poppy instead. It's not entirely clear to me why this plant, native to North America and parts of Asia, should be called the Iceland Poppy - and the "origin of name" / "folklore" sections are boringly left empty on the Iceland Poppy wiki (who, in any case, would have thought there was such a thing?). I had fantasies of a William Morris expedition, bringing back the rare seeds on a little shaggy pale fawn pony, with a couple of attendant sagas, but no such luck. The most interesting thing that I can find out about it is that each flower head only splits open in one place - and that's not exactly enthralling information...