Friday Fact || In Flanders fields, where poppies blow
In history and literature, there’s no other flower that has made a mark than the poppy. Poppies (scientific name: papaveracaeae) are small flowering plants, often herbaceous, often grown for their flowers. They have also been used for medicine. One species, the papaver somniferum is the source of opium. So, how did the poppy gain so much significance? It was during the First World War where trench warfare in France was raging. So many men and animals have died, and their blood, along with the nitrogen from explosives and lime from shattered infrastructures such as houses and buildings, fertilised the soil to such an extent that poppies flooded the fields of France and Belgium. Constant bombardment of the soil also disturbed the iy, bringing the seeds to the surface. And the longer the war raged, more soldiers were being killed, the more the poppies thrived. Soldiers wrote home about the poppies, and so did the poets. One of them was John McCrae, a Canadian doctor at a field hospital. He wrote In Flanders Fields after burying his friend, a …
