CLASS Xm. ORDER I»] PAPAVER. 751 



hitherto heen fully investigated by chemists. It, however, has been 

 remarked that all flowers do not equally impart their colours to water, 

 nor does the expressed juice equally retain its colour, for that of most 

 red flowers is changed to blue by expression ; hence it is inferred that 

 there is the escape of some acid, which is doubtless carbonic : if an 

 acid is added to Ihe juice thus changed, it immediately becomes its 

 original colour. The well known deep blue colour of the violet is, 

 when expressed, changed red, by the addition of acids and by that of 

 alkalies, and then carbonates, flrst green and then yellow, the reason 

 of which seems to be, that a green colour is owing to a mixture of blue 

 and yellow. This same kind of colouring matter is found in many 

 other plants besides the violet, as the lavender, the hyacinth, &c., and 

 rendered red by the presence of an acid ; it is found in the petals of the 

 rose, clover, hollyhock, and numerous others. So fugitive, however, is 

 the red colour in some plants, that upon simply bruising the outer skin 

 the red is changed into a blue colour, as may be familiarly known to 

 many persons in the red cabbage, or the rind of the roots of the common 

 garden radish, which, upon being bruised, impart to water a blue 

 colour, but which is changed to red by the addition of acids. Schubler 

 considers the redf orange red, orange, and yellowish green colour of 

 flowers, to be owing to the absorption of oxygen ; the hlueish green, 

 blue, violet-bluef violet-red, and red colours, to be owing to disoxy- 

 genizement. 



These remarks may, perhaps, lead the florist and cultivator of flowers 

 to the consideration of how far by the use of diff'erent soils and 

 dressings he may be enabled to produce more beautiful and splendid 

 colours in his flowers, and efl'ect those changes which he desires in 

 them with a greater degree of certainty than at present; by the use of 

 those dressings which are known to possess much carbonic acid gas, as 

 the decomposition of vegetable matters, he may improve and produce 

 finer red colours, while if he used animal matters as a dressing in 

 which alkalies are formed, he may not expect to improve, but rather 

 detract from the brilliancy of red colours, but will improve blue or 

 purple flowers. To these hints, however, we must for the present 

 confine our remarks ; it is, nevertheless, an extremely interesting inves- 

 tigation : and perhaps as vegetable chemistry becomes better understoo(l 

 much valuable information will be elicited for the agriculturist. 



5. P. somni'ferum, Linn. (Fig. 855.) White Poppy. Glaucous 

 capsule globose, smooth; filaments dilated upwards; leaves oblong, 

 unequally toothed, the upper cordate at the base, and amplexicaul, the 

 lower ones tapering. 



English Botany, t. 2145.— English Flora, vol. iii. p. 11.— Hooker, 

 British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 214.— Lindley, Synopsis, p. 17. 



Root tapering. Stem erect, from three to four feet high, more or 

 less branched and leafy, of a glaucous green, smooth, sometimes 

 scattered over with a few distant hairs. Leaves numerous, a smooth 



