N. ORD.—PAPAVERACE. 
GENUS.-ARGEMONE,* LINN. 
SEX. SYST.—POLYANDRIA MONOGYNIA, 
ARGEMONE. 
PRIURLY FOPPY. 
SYN.—ARGEMONE MEXICANA, LINN. 
COM. NAMES.—PRICKLY POPPY, DEVIL’S FIG, MEXICAN POPPY, THORN 
APPLE,} YELLOW THISTLE,! THORN POPPY ; (MEX.) CHICALOTE; (FR.) 
ARGEMONE; (GER.) STACHELMOHN., 
A TINCTURE OF THE WHOLE PLANT ARGEMONE MEXICANA, L. 
Description.—This annual weedy herb, grows to a height of from 1 to 3 feet. 
Root long, subcylindrical ; s¢ew erect, branching, prickly-bristled, and furnished, as 
the rest of the plant, with a gamboge-yellow milky juice. Leaves sessile, broadly 
lanceolate in general outline, sinuate lobed, spiny toothed, and blotched or striped 
with white along the principal veins. /xflorescence solitary in the axils of the upper 
leaves, and terminal ; duds erect, pedunculate ; fowers large, yellow, or rarely white. 
Sepals 2 to 3, roundish, acuminate, often prickly, very fugacious. /¢a/s 4 to 6, 
z. e., twice as many as the sepals, roundish, more or less crumpled in the bud. 
Stamens indefinitely numerous; //aments filiform, greatly attenuated at the apex ; 
anthers large, innate. Ovary strictly 1-celled; style almost none; sézgmas 3 to 6, 
stellate-radiate, purple, velvety on the receptive surface ; lobes reflexed. /ruzt an 
oblong-ovate, prickly pod, opening by 3 to 6 valves at the apex, leaving a skele- 
ton of from 3 to 6 filiform placentz in the shape of the original pod; seeds globular, 
crested, and pitted. 
Papaveracesws.—This principally European family of herbs, noted for their 
milky, and generally colored, narcotic or acrid juice, is represented in North 
America by 15 genera, 23 species, and 7 recognized varieties. The order is fur- 
ther characterized as follows: Leaves alternate, exstipulate. Peduncles 1-flowered ; 
flowers regular, the parts in twos or muliples of two. Sepals 2, very rarely 3, 
fugacious Fetals 4 to 12, early deciduous, rarely absent, imbricated in the bud. 
Stamens numerous, rarely as few as 16, distinct, hypogynous; anthers 2-celled, 
innate, introrse. Ovary 1-celled, with two or more parietal placente. Fruit a 
dry, 1- rarely few or many-celled pod. Seeds numerous, anatropous ; embryo 
minute, basal ; a/bumen fleshy or oily. 
* ’Apyéna, argema, cataract; as the juice was supposed to cure that disease. 
+ Applicable only to Datura Stramonium ( Solanacez.) 
t The true Yellow Thistle is Cirsium horridulum (Composite. ) 
