Papaver.] papaveracea:. 23 



Stamens about as long as or rather longer than the germen, their filaments purplish, 

 angular, slender, not at all dilated upwards nor hollow within ; anthers purplish, 

 ovato -elliptical, flattened, 2-lobed, bursting by their lateral margins; pollen 

 greenish and globular. Germen tiuncately ovale or urceolate, crowned with the 

 9—12 rayed convex or flattish stigma, the rays dilated or clavate at their ends 

 and covered with a purple glandular pile or pubescence. Capsule pale whitish 

 brown, crowned with the equally broad or even slightly projecting persistent 

 stigma ; urceolate, with a more or less subglobose or ovate form, quite glabrous, 

 with many distinct but not prominent ribs, the intercostal spaces plane. Seeds 

 numerous, roundish kidney-shaped, reddish, grayish or blackish, suboompressed, 

 covered with a regular network of angular cells. 



About Godshill, and perhaps elsewhere in the island, the Poppy is used to feed 

 pigs with, as I can myself testify, having seen it collected for that purpose ; and 

 on inquiry I learn that this narcotic plant is considered very wholesome and nou- 

 rishing food for them, either alone or mixed with their wash. 



It is remarkable that this and the other species of Poppy, the disposition of 

 which to wander obtained for them amongst the old writers the title of " errati- 

 cum," should have little or no tendency to establish themselves in the United 

 States or in Canada, where so many of our common European weeds have 

 obtained an extensive and in some cases injurious fooling, favoured by the simi- 

 larity of soil and climate to the country from which they migrated. 



5. P. somniferum, L. White or Opium Poppy. " Glaucous, 

 capsule globose glabrous, filaments dilated upwards, stem and 

 amplexicaul leaves usually glabrous. "^ — Br. Fl. p. 17. E. B. t. 

 2145. 



Naturalized in waste and newly tutned-up ground, on building-lots and rub- 

 bish-heaps ; more rarely in cornfields, on sand or chalk, and principally at the 

 back of the Island. FL July. 0. 



JE. Med. — Frequent at Ventnor, coming up wherever the soil is disturbed for 

 building or gardens. On rough ground near the sea between Steephill and St. 

 Lawrence. On waste ground nearly below the Pulpit rock, Bonchurch. Corn- 

 field near Yaverland, 1840. 



Root annual, whitish, woody and tapering, s. little branched. Stem stout, soli- 

 tary, erect, simple in the smaller, branched above in the larger plants, but always 

 less so than in any of our other species, rounded, slightly furrowed and angular, 

 spread over with glaucous bloom, very leafy, from about 2 to 3 or even 4 feet high. 

 Leaves large, somewhat fleshy, covered with the same glaucous bloom as the stem, 

 patent or suberect, undulated or quite sessile, those at the root oblong, a little nar- 

 rowing to the base, the rest gradually widening to a more ovate form, heart-shaped 

 at their base, their lobes amplexicaul, all copiously, acutely and unequally inciso- 

 serrate or crenate, sinualely lobed, the serratures thickened at their tips and often 

 armed with a bristle ; the margins and disk of the leaves much waved or crisped 

 and deflexed. Peduncles single-flowered, glabrous or beset with scattered, rigid, 

 spreading hairs. Flowers at first drooping, then erect, very large, 3 or 4 inches across, 

 extremely variable in colour, from white to every shade of purple or crimson, often 

 even in spontaneously springing plants double or semidouble. Calyx smooth, 

 glabrous, green or purplish. Petals unequal, the exterior largest, roundish 

 wedge-shaped, the two interior narrower, striated with veins that are prominent 

 and rib-like at the back, the base of each petal marked with a large obovate spot 

 of dark purple. Stamens whitish, their flattened filaments a little enlarged or 

 clavate at the summit ; anthers sublinear, oblong, pale. Germen goblet-shaped, 

 contracted above the insertion of the stamens into a kind of foot as in that uten- 

 sil. Stigma peltate, convex, its projecting margin deeply lobed, the lobes mem- 

 branaceous, free. 



The entire plant when broken or cut emits a milky, acrid and very bitter juice, 

 which turns brown by contact with the air, and when inspissated becomes the 

 well-known and valuable drug called opium. 



