358 FOREST CULTURE AND 
dry on a place away from sunlight ; it may also bé 
placed on poppy-leaves, From one to six successive 
incisions are made to exhaust the sap, according to 
season, weather, locality, or the knife-like instrument 
_ employed. In the Department of Somme (France), 
alone, opium to the value of £70,000 annually is pro- 
duced, and poppy-seed to the value of £170,000. Our 
seasons here, as a rule, are favorable for collecting 
opium, and thus this culture is here rendered less 
precarious than in many other countries. Our opium 
has proved as good as the best Smyrna kinds. The 
petals are dried for packing the opium. The main 
value of opium depends on its contents of morphia, 
for which the genus Papaver, as faras was hitherto 
known, remains the sole source. But not less than 
eleven alkaloids have been revealed in opium by 
the progressive strides of organic chemistry: Codein, 
Metamorphin, Morphia or Morphine, Narcein, Narcot- 
in, Opianin, Papaverin, Porphyroxin, Pseudo-morphin 
and Thebain. It contains, beside, an indifferent bitter 
principle: Meconin and Meconic Acid (vide ‘ Witt- 
stein’s Chemische Analyze von Pflauzentheilen.’’) 
Various species of Papaver produce more or less opi- 
um and morphia. 
Parinarium Nonda, F. v. Mueller.—The Nonda- 
tree of North-east Australia. It may prove hardy in 
East Gipps Land, and may live, perhaps, in the dry 
and hot air of our deserts, where it deserves trial-cul- 
ture for the sake of its edible, mealy, plum-like fruit. 
A few other species with esculent drupes oceur in dif- 
ferent tropical countries. 
Parkinsonia aculeata, L.—From California to Monte- 
video. A thorny shrub, clearly adapted for the warm- 
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