Botany lesson

Snapped through the railings protecting the nursery department of Pound Lane School. I thought that they were out-of-season poppies, but BH briskly informed me that they were anemones.

Which is probably right, as google tells me that there are three sorts of anemone: daisy headed, poppy headed and Japanese - which last have been growing in our garden for years and are popular generally in the area.

Only very distantly related to poppies, as one has to go all the up to the magnoliids to get a common ancestor. With anemones being among the ranunculales and poppies being among the papaverales. It also seems that taxonomists are still arguing about the organisation at these higher levels - from which we deduce that classifying plants is an even more tricky business than, for example, asserting that a rabbit is not a rodent.