Diverging Poppies

We have blooming poppies.



Looking at the date of last year's photos, they seem a little early; it's only the second week of May and they're blooming now--last year it seemed like they waited for the first week of June to bloom.  Perhaps we'll get more poppies showing up in a month.









This year's poppies appear to be reverting back to their hybridized roots.  Of the flowering plants, two seem taller with purple blooms and a decagonal symmetry; three are about the same size and mauve color from last year with octagonal symmetry; and four are half the height, with small pale mauve blooms with hexagonal symmetry.   Looking at photos from last year, the poppies had either decagonal or nonagonal symmetry.



They all smell pretty bad, though.

And the pedals only last about a day before they fall from the bud.



I wonder what it says that I'm looking at poppies and trying to "look into the seeds of time and see which ones will grow."  Does this make me a Mendelian curator of sleep and dreams and death?

Now of course I'm imagining a story with a mystic gardener growing a rainbow collection of poppies cautioning the story protagonist to choose carefully from the growing beds.   One lavender flower brings prophetic dreams, two flowers brings deep sleep, and three slumber without waking.   One red flower rekindles a love, two flowers brings a night of passion, three brings animalistic insanity.  

One white poppy sounds like a perfume...