Garden Plants - Eschscholzia

It sounds like quite a mouthful, which is probably why we know this plant better by its common name - California Poppy and indeed it's the State flower of California. This poppy has been used as a diuretic and a sedative, in particular for children. The sap has been used as a toothache remedy, or rubbed on the breasts to suppress milk production for women who did not wish to nurse their newborn children. Apart from its health benefits (which have not yet been rigorously tested, unlike those of its near relative the Evening Primrose) this self-seeding plant has always been popular for its glowing golden colour.

When Spanish explorers first saw the foothills of the Californian mountains, they were covered with flowers the colour of molten gold and that is why the called the region the Golden West, not because they expected to find gold there! The Spanish name for this plant is the copa de ora and there is no doubt that it was the cause of the first naming of the Gold Rush country.

It travelled an odd way back to Europe, going first back to Russia in the company of Adelbert Chamisso, who named the poppy after the ship's doctor (Chamisso had suffered from sea-sickness and was grateful for the doctor's attentions) and his name, Elsholz was Russianised to Eschscholz. Chamisso himself was a French Revolutionary refugee who escaped to Russia. Their ship, the Rurik, travelled much of the world over the three years of the voyage, and anchored at one Pacific island that was also named after the good doctor (by this time the captain had been cured of sea-boils and was as grateful as Chamisso) but Eschscholz Atoll was not to survive because in 1946 it was renamed Bikini

Garden Eschscholzia photograph by artslave, used under a creative commons attribution licence