54 ^ viT. PAPAVERACEJE (oliver). {PapaveT. 



*1. p. dubium, Linn.; DC. Prod. i. 118. A slender-branched annual, 

 hispid or nearly or quite glabrous. 



Nile Land. Abyssinia, Schimper ! 



Widely spread in waste and cultivated ground through Europe and temperate and sub- 

 tropical Asia. Schweinfurth and Ascherson, in their enumeration of Nile plants, cite P. 

 R/iceas, Linn., from Abyssinia. It differs from F. dubiu?n in its globose capsule. 



*2. P. somniferum, Linn. ; DC. Prod. i. 119. An erect, glaucous, and 

 usually glabrous annual, simple or slightly branched. Flowers large, whitish 

 with a purple blotch at the base, or altogether purple-black. Capsule large 

 and glabrous. 



I have not actually seen specimens from Tropical Africa, but it is commonly cultivated 

 for the sake of its milky juice (opium), and often occurs in waste places throughout the 

 tropics of the Old World. 



2. ARGEMONE, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. Gen. PI. i. 52. 



Sepals 2 or 3. Petals 4-6. Stamens indefinite. Ovary with 4-7 slender 

 placentary lines with indefinite ovules ; stigmas 4-7, very shortly stipitate, 

 radiating. Capsule oblong, separating at the apex between the placentas 

 into short valves or teeth, many-seeded. Seeds pitted. — Prickly, more or 

 less glaucous, branched herbs, with pinnatifid spinose leaves and showy w^hite 

 or yellow flowers. 



A small American genus, of which the following species occurs almost everywhere, as an 

 introduced weed, between the tropics in the Old World. 



*1. A. xnexicana, Linn. ; DC. Prod. i. 120. An herb with a some- 

 what shrubby habit, the stem glaucous, smooth or spinidose. Leaves semi- 

 amplexicaul, pinnatifidly-lobed or sinuate, spinulose. Plowers orange or 

 yellow. Capsule setose or sometimes unarmed. 



Upper Guinea. Dahomey, Burton ! Seuegambia, Leprieur. 

 I^ozaxnb. Distr. Zanzibar, <S/j^^<? .' Mozambique, /"^^(prj (Klotzsch). 



Suborder II. Fumarie^e. 



Plowers hei-maphrodite, irregular in the African species. Sepals 2, minute, 

 resembling coloured bracteoles. Petals 4, in two pairs, connivent, one of the 

 two outer with a saccate or spurred base, two inner cohering at their apices. 

 Stamens 6, diadelphous, the middle stamen of each bundle with a 2-celled 

 anther, the lateral stamens with 1-celled anthers. Pistil syncarpous. Ovary 

 superior, 1-celled, with 2 placentas; ovules l-oo. Style filiform; stigma 

 lobed or nearly entire. Pruit a several-seeded capsule or an achene. Seeds 

 with a minute embryo and copious fleshy albumen. — Weak, decumbent or 

 climbing herbs with watery juice. Leaves alternate or rarely opposite, multi- 

 partite. Plowers white rose or yellow, in terminal or leaf-opposed racemes 

 in the African species. 



This Suborder is represented in Tropical Africa by a common and widely diffused weed 

 of cultivation, but around the Mediterranean and at the Cape there occur some endemic 

 forms characterized by peculiarities in the fruit or in the form of the stigma. 



