Poppy

Scientific Name: Papaver. Beautiful but deadly, Europe and the Middle East have had a complex relationship with the poppy for thousands of years. Long known to contain powerful narcotic substances - morphine, opium and codeine are all created from the papaver somniferum - these innocuous flowers represent sleep, death and peace. Interestingly, poppies are a common sight in temperate and subtropical climates but are almost never seen in the tropics themselves.