THE POPPY TRIBE. 19 



The next plants I would advise you to study, are 

 the Poppies; that singular genus, which, in the form 

 of a few red flowered species, is the plague of the care- 

 less farmer, who calls them Redweed, and, in the 

 form of another, is rendered, hy the folly and vice 

 of man, the scourge of half the world, in the shape 

 of opium. The Poppies form a genus of plants re- 

 presenting the characters of a small natural order, 

 very nearly related to the Crowfoot tribe, fi'om which 

 it differs in its properties, being of a stupifying, in- 

 stead of a burning and blistering nature, as well as 

 in its botanical characters. Like the Crowfoot, the 

 Poppy has leaves with netted veins, and also a great 

 many stamens, arising fi'om under the carpels ; but, 

 unlike the Crowfoot, the carpels are not several, 

 and distinct from each other, but have all grown 

 together into a single ovary (PI. I. Q.Jig. 2.); the 

 styles are wanting; and the stigmas are elevated 

 hairy lines, which spread equally from the top of the 

 ovary, forming a sort of star-like crown. If you 

 open the ovary, you will find that it consists of 

 but one cell, or cavity ; and that several little plates, 

 which project from the sides of it into the cavity 

 {fig. 6.), are covered w4th very numerous and very 

 small ovules, or young seeds. In course of time, the 

 ovary changes to a hollow box, with a hard brittle 

 shell, called a capsule, which is the fruit : and when 

 it has become of a pale brownish colour, it, and the 

 seeds it contains, are ripe ; in this state it is the 

 poppy-head you see in the windows of druggists' 

 shops. So hard is the shell of the capsule, and so 



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