DICOTYLEDONS 5 1 



It has been in cultivation for many centuries. 

 Gerarde figures both single and double kinds in his 

 Herball, 1597. It is believed to be a cultivated 

 variety of the S. European species, P. setigerinn. 



Dr. Hogg gives the following account of the 

 extraction of opium. He says the manner in which 



Fig. 13. Papaver somniferum ; Opium Poppy. 



Opium is obtained is still the same as that practised 

 in the East centuries before the time of our 

 Saviour.^ A few days after the fall of the flower, 

 men and women proceed to the fields at sunset, 

 and make horizontal incisions in the poppy-heads, 



1 The " gall " of Scripture, a translation of Rosh^ meaning 

 *' head," appears to have been opium. 



