POLYPETAL^— PAPAVERACE^^ 



123 



PAPAVERACEiE (Poppy Family) 



Herbs with milky juice. Leaves exstipulate. Flowers 

 usually showy, regular, hypogynous. Sepals, two (three), 

 polysepalous. Petals, 2 + 2, polypetalous. Stamens numerous. 

 Carpels, from 2 to 00 , syncarpous : ovary one-chambered, with 

 many ovules on parietal placenta. Fruit dehiscent. Seeds 

 endospermic. 



Type I : FIELD-POPPY (Papaver rhoeas).* 



Vegetative characters. — Annual herbaceous plant, with 

 milky juice (latex) and bristly hairs. Leaves alternate, stalked, 



Fig. 153. — Vertical section of flower of Poppy. 



without Stipules, simple, pinnately cleft. Flower (fig. 153) 

 solitary, terminal, actinomorphic, hypogynous. Sepals (sep) 

 two, separate, falling off as the flower opens. Petals (/ ), 

 2 -(- 2, separate, arranged in two alternating whorls of two each ; 

 the outer two .also alternate with the two sepals. The petals 

 are crumpled in the bud ; each petal may have a black spot at 

 the base of its inner face. Stamens numerous ( 00), hypogynous. 

 Carpels from eight to twelve, syncarpous, superior. Ovary 

 (pv) one-chambered, with from eight to twelve parietal 

 placentae (//) protruding inwards from the wall, and having 

 many ovules on their faces (also fig. 155). Stigmas (fig. 154 s) 

 from eight to twelve, sessile, forming velvety bands radiating 



* The flowers of almost any sort of Poppy may be examined in place 

 of the one here described. 



