Today is Veterans Day.  The date commemorates the ending of the First World War on November 11, 1918 at 11:00 a.m.  The following year, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first "Armistice Day", as it was then known:

"To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations."

A custom arose among allies of wearing poppies in remembrance of the soldiers who were killed in the Great War.  Why poppies?  The association was inspired by a very popular poem written by Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae.  The poem opens with these lines:

In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,

John McCrae did not live to see the end of the war.  He died of an illness in France in 1918.

Although California' state flower is a known as the "California Poppy", it is a different genus than the poppy immortalized by John McCrae.  The California poppy is in the genus Eschscholtzia and is named for the German botanist Johann Friedrich Eschscholtz.  Cal. Govt. Code § 421.  The poppy associated with Flanders is in the genus Papaver, the same genus as the opium poppy, papaver somniferum (literally, sleep bearing poppy).  These two genera aren't completely unrelated as they are in the same plant family, the Papaveraceae.

Note that I actually cited a state law in the preceding paragraph.  It turns out that the Government Code is full of official state designations - everything from the official state marine fish to the official state fossil.  In fact,  Justice William Bedsworth once devoted an entire column to the subject a few years back:

You wanna know why you have 37 linear feet of codes in your library? You wanna know why you need a forklift to pick up the Government Code? Because it's full of stuff like, "The California dogface butterfly (Zerene eurydice) is the official state insect" (Gov. Code Sec. 424.5), that's why.

Important stuff. Stuff like designating the golden poppy the official state flower and declaring April 6 of each year, "California Poppy Day" (Gov. Code Sec. 421)

"The Garibaldi's in the Government Code," 38 Orange County Lawyer 18 (1996) (footnote omitted).

I'll end this post where I began:  Today is Veterans Day.  Let's all remember and honor the service of the men and women who have served our country.