They are also for eternal sleep, imagination, consolation, pleasure and fantastic extravagance - take your pick - and that's just the red ones. But I do like it that such a showy flower blooms with such abandon in the fields and the roadside. And there are few flowers (except Honesty with its stunning papery seed pod) that look so beautiful at so many stages of their life cycle. Here's a series of photos I took this summer.
