= 
PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM. ORD. XI. Rheeades. 877 
brace the stalk: the flowers are very large, terminal, and usually 
white or purplish: the calyx consists of two leaves, which are ovate, 
smooth, concave, bifid, and fall off on the opening of the flower: 
the corolla consists of four petals, which are large, roundish, entire, 
undulated: the filaments are numerous, slender, much shorter than 
the corolla, and furnished with oblong erect compressed anthera: 
the germen is large, globular, and upon it is placed the stigma, 
which is large, flat, radiated, and forms a kind of crown: the capsule 
is one-celled, smooth, divided half way into many cells, which 
open by several apertures beneath the crown, and contain very 
numerous small white seeds. It’is a native of England, usually 
growing in neglected gardens, or uncultivated rich grounds, and 
flowers in J uly and August. 
This species is said to have been named White Poppy from the 
whiteness of its seeds; a variety of it however is well known to 
produce black seeds: the double-flowered white poppy is also 
another variety; but for medicinal purposes any of these may be 
employed indiscriminately, as we are not able:to think the least 
difference in their sensible qualities or effects. 
The seeds, according to some authors, possess a narcotic power ;* 
but there is no foundation for this opinion: they consist of a simple 
farinaceous matter, united with a bland oil, and in many countries 
are eaten as food, AS a medicine, they have been usually given 
in the form of emulsion; in catarrhs, stranguaries, &c. 
The heads or capsules of the Poppy, which are directed for use 
in the Pharmacopeeias, like the stalks and leaves, have an ur- 
pleasant smell, somewhat like that of opium, and an acrid bitterish 
taste. Both the smell and’ taste reside in a’ milky juice, which 
more especially abounds in the cortical part of the capsules, and 
in its concrete state constitutes the officinal opium. These cap- 
sules are powerfully narcotic, or anodyne; boiled:in water, they 
impart to the menstruum their narcotic juice, together with the 
* Hermann, Cynosur, Mat. Med. p. 436. Junker, Conspec. Ther. Gen. p. 279. 
No. 32.—vor. 3 5¢ 
