Althouse: May flowers.

May 27, 2007

May flowers.

Poppy:

Peonies:

Peonies?

23 comments:

The Drill SGT said...: THEY ARE PRETTY, BUT POPPIES ARE SPECIAL TODAY.; 5/27/07, 5:38 PM
The Drill SGT said...: trying again; 5/27/07, 5:39 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Oh, I should have thought of that and left off the peonies... Sorry.; 5/27/07, 5:42 PM
Peter Hoh said...: The flowers in the third photo look like dahlias.; 5/27/07, 6:02 PM
Peter Hoh said...: My public poppies -- the ones growing on my front boulevard -- are through blooming. There are four blossoms left, and I don't think any of them will be sticking around for tomorrow.; 5/27/07, 6:04 PM
The Drill SGT said...: well the poppy remembrance stuff is more of a Commonwealth thing, and it really is for Armistice Day, Nov 11th. However, poppies do have a symbolic meaning for remembering war dead.

I would have though you WI folks would know the customs of your next door neighbors :); 5/27/07, 6:05 PM
The Drill SGT said...: A better Aussie location with history and wonderful photos; 5/27/07, 6:12 PM
al said...: One of my favorite flowers. Mine started blooming last week and are really going right now.; 5/27/07, 7:00 PM
al said...: BTW I was talking about poppies.; 5/27/07, 7:01 PM
XWL said...: As far as the last flower, Mums the word (I think).; 5/27/07, 7:09 PM
Simon said...: What Sarge said. My grandfather was a Royal Marine, and he really passed that, I guess sense of reverence for, as Kipling put it, "the Glorious Dead" (a phrase, by the way, that I detest: a generation of young men thrown into a meat grinder over a clash of regal ambitions does not evoke "glory" to me) to my mom, thus our household was scrupulous about observing armistice day, the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month," so much so that moving to the States and discovering that poppies weren't a done thing (at least, not in Indiana) was somewhat jarring to me. I suppose I could wear one anyway, but the significance would be lost on most folks.

Pretty photos, though. :); 5/27/07, 7:23 PM
Adrian said...: some crazy things can happen to americans who don't know about canadians and our attachment to poppies; 5/27/07, 9:02 PM
Christy said...: I agree they don't look like the peonies I know. However, that ball of a bud on the left above the flower is definitely a peony. So there you go. 'Sides, isn't it a little early for all but hothouse Dahlias or Mums?; 5/27/07, 10:20 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Christy is right, which is why I think it's an unusual type of peony. It was also quite large, the size of a peony.; 5/27/07, 10:37 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Well, I'm still sticking with my guess that it's a dahlia. That bud on the left and the flower look a lot like what I grew last year. Peony buds, as best I know, always have a bit of green around them, and that's missing on the bud in the third photo.

Yes, a dahlia would need a hothouse head start to be blooming right now in Wisconsin. Some of my recently purchased mums are actually budding, even though they normally bloom in the fall.

Ann, any chance that you can remember if this plant was in a container or in the ground?

There are a great many varieties of mum, peony, and dahlia. A close up of a flower is not always easily indentifiable. It helps to see the whole plant, as well as a close up of a leaf to make a more certain identification.; 5/27/07, 11:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Peter is right. The last photo is of a dahlia.; 5/27/07, 11:40 PM
Anonymous said...: BTW, check out this dahlia for comparison.; 5/27/07, 11:59 PM
Rick Rockhill said...: The photos of these flowers are so beautiful, they actually made me smile.

thanks for sharing! stop by and say hi sometime.
www.rickrockhill.blogspot.com; 5/28/07, 1:47 AM
Anonymous said...: How is it Wisconsin is ahead of us? It's just not fair ...; 5/28/07, 5:12 AM
Galvanized said...: See, I was like XWL and thought the last was a mum. But after looking at the links, it must be a dahlia.

Still, the white peonies are my favorites. Soooo pretty :); 5/28/07, 7:01 AM
SARA said...: Beautiful poppies!
to Simon:yes,if you wore a poppy on the Nov.11 you may start a tradition even in Indiana. Up here in Canada a few weeks leading up to the 11th of each November everyone wears a red felt "poppy" over their heart...the war veterans make good money on the sale of these pins helping all amputees, not just war veterans.

Poppies are a symbolic flower for sure- when I see them, no matter how beautiful they appear in a garden, they still make me think of death.

Most of us are familiar with Col.John McCraes famous "In Flanders Fields"

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I've visited McCraes birthplace/ historical home in Guelph ON Canada..a beautiful stone home built by the early Scottish settlers to that city!! His life story is pretty amazing too.; 5/28/07, 8:53 AM
Simon said...: Re "In Flanders Fields" - this is somewhat tangential, but I was always more moved by this WW1 poem:

I'm homesick for my hills again -
To see above the Severn plain
Unscabbarded against the sky
The blue high blade of Cotswold lie;
The giant clouds go royally
By jagged Malvern with a train
Of shadows.

Where the land is low
Like a huge imprisoning O
I hear a heart that's sound and high,
I hear the heart within me cry:
"I'm homesick for my hills again -
Cotswold or Malvern, sun or rain!
My hills again!"

In the midst of hell on earth - the mud, the carnage and the death, the omnipresent peril of the western front - the soldier's mind escapes to a reverie of the vale of Gloucestershire. I think Frederick William Harvey wrote the words, but I remember it by the later musical setting by Johnny Coppin, which breaks my heart every time.; 5/28/07, 9:28 AM
Simon said...: ^ (That has obvious added resonance for me, because I grew up there.); 5/28/07, 9:29 AM