From My Earliest Childhood,

I have always known the poppy,

symbolized the fallen in the First World War, but why at wars end did so many appear? I never knew, until now, due to its peculiar biology, the common poppy, (Papaver rhoeas), is an annual plant in the Papaveraceae family, it produces seeds that can remain dormant in the soil for as long as 100 years, since the seeds need light to grow, they only germinate in disturbed soils, trench digging, bombs, and mass cemeteries decimated Europe’s landscape during World War I, causing millions of poppies to bloom on the disrupted soil, and that is why so many sprung up at wars end, but it took more than the sight of flowers to turn the poppy into an international symbol, read how it happened at Smithsonian, photograph Gary Houston.