398 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



extracted by making incisions in the capsules, and from 

 which opium is obtained. 



The variety which has been cultivated for centuries 

 escapes readily from cultivation, or becomes almost 

 naturalized in certain localities of the south of Europe.^ 

 It cannot be said to exist in a really wild state, but 

 botanists are agreed in regarding it as a modification of 

 the poppy called Papaver setigerum, which is wild on 

 the shores of the Mediterranean, notably in Spain, Algeria, 

 Corsica, Sicily, Greece, and the island of C^^prus. It has 

 not been met with in Eastern Asia,^ consequently this is 

 really the original of the cultivated form. Its cultivation 

 must have begun in Europe or in the north of Africa. 

 In support of this theory we find that the Swiss lake- 

 dwellers of the stone age cultivated a poppy which is 

 nearer to P. setigeriun than to P. somniferum. Heer^ 

 has not been able to find any of the leaves, but the capsule 

 is surmoiuited by eight stigmas, as in P. setigerum, and 

 not by ten or twelve, as in the cultivated poppy. This 

 latter form, unknown in nature, seems therefore to have 

 been developed within historic times. P. setigerum is 

 still cultivated in the north of France, together with P. 

 scminiferum, for the sake of its oil.* 



The ancient Greeks were well acquainted with the 

 cultivated poppy. Homer. Theophrastus, and Dioscorides 

 mention it. They were aware of the somniferous pro- 

 perties of the sap, and Dioscorides ^ mentions the variety 

 with white seeds. The Romans cultivated the poppy 

 before the republic, as we see by the anecdote of Tarquin 

 and the poppy-heads. They mixed its seeds with their 

 flour in making bread. 



The Egyptians of Pliny's time ^ used the juice of the 

 poppy as a medicament, but we have no proof that this 



* Willkomm and Lange.. Prodr. Fl. Eisp., iii. p. 872. 



* Boissier, Fl. Orient.; TchihatchefE, Asie Mineurej Ledebour, Fl, 

 Boss., and others. 



* Heer, PflanMcn der Pfahlhauten, p. 32, figs. 65, 66. 



* De Lanessan, in his translation from Fliickiger and Hanbnrj, Eis* 

 toire des Drogues d'Origine Vegctale, i. p. 129, 



* Dioscorides, Hist. Plant., lib. iv. c. 65. 

 « Pliny, Hist. Plant., lib. xx. c. 18. 



