2 Flower Colour and Characters of the Opium Poppy 



directed to India as a possible field from which the demand could be 

 met. Indian Opium had, in the past, failed. to compete with the Turkish 

 product mainly because the morphine content was, as a rule, below that 

 required by the B. P. With Turkish competition removed, the trade 

 was forced to accept Opium of lower morphine content than that to 

 which it had been accustomed ; that acceptance was, however, not 

 willingly given and the enhanced price paid for Opium satisfying B. P. 

 requirements raised the question as to the possibility of producing, in 

 India, an Opium of high morphine content. The desirability of affecting 

 such an increase of the morphine content is of more than immediate 

 importance. The medical Opium trade is, in value, in the neighbour- 

 hood of £1,000,000 per annum and has hitherto been in foreign hands. 

 The present time, consequently, offers a great opportunity of replacing 

 permanently the foreign product by one produced within the Empire. 

 With this object in view the question was referred to us by Government 

 and has formed the subject of experiments which are still in progress. 



The Opium Poppy grown in India is distinct from that grown in 

 Turkey and appears to have received little attention botanically. Clearly 

 such an investigation, with a view of isolating as many races as possible 

 which could later form the basis for chemical investigation, was the 

 first thing desired. For this purpose large numbers of samples of seed 

 were collected, and from these pure races isolated. While the Opium 

 Poppy of the main opium tract, situated in the United Provinces, is 

 white flowered, that of the Malwa tract contains coloured races and the 

 range of colour is considerable. This petal colour forms one of the 

 most prominent characteristics of the plant and has, therefore, been 

 used as a primary character in determining the purity of the races 

 having coloured flowers, and the amount of work done on these has 

 been considerable. The economic problem, as described above, is, how- 

 ever, fundamentally chemical, and representation of this aspect led to 

 the association of Mr Annett with us to investigate the chemical side 

 of the problem. The investigations hitherto carried out indicate that 

 the solution of the economic problem, to which circumstances compel 

 attention to be restricted for the present, is not to be found in any of 

 the coloured races. Were no other characters to be considered, the 

 branching habit so characteristic of the coloured races, leading to the 

 production of as many as twenty-four or even thirty heads on one plant, 

 makes these unsuitable for cultivation with the object of drug produc- 

 tion, for the method of collecting the drug, by lancing the capsule at a 

 certain stage of maturity, makes the production of a single capsule 



