24 PAPAVEEACE^. [GUucium. 



I have seen the Opium Poppy so troublesome a weed in cornfields about Cob- 

 ham near Rochester, that women were employed to root it out. It had most 

 likely been culliyated there antecedently for the use of the druggists. 



A native it is said of Asia, but now naturalized in most parts of Europe as far 

 North as St. Petersburgh, having escaped from gardens or fields, in which it is 

 generally cultivated, both as an ornamental border annual, or on an extensive 

 scale for the oil afi"orded by its seeds, in great use in Flanders for culinary pur- 

 poses, as well as for the large globose capsules, called Poppy-heads, of well-known 

 efficacy in an anodyne decoction, and from which in the East opium is produced. 



II. Gladcium, Tourn. Horned Poppy. 



" Sepals 2. Petals 4. Stigma 3-lobed, sessile. Pod linear, 

 the two placentas at length connected by a spongy dissepiment, 

 hence 3-ceUed, 2-Yalved. Seeds dotted without a crest." — Br. Fl. 



1. G. luteum, Scop. Yellow Horned Poppy. Sea Poppy. Sea 

 Celandine. " Pod minutely tuberculated, cauline leaves amplexi- 

 caul sinuate, stem glabrous." — Br. Fl. p. 17. E. B. t. 8. Cheli- 

 donium Glaucium, L. 



On the sandy or shingly sea-beach, cliffs and waste ground along the shore, not 

 unfrequent; rarely somewhat inland. Fl. June — October. S- Sin. et alior. 

 ©. sec. Honk. Huds. tkc* 



E. Med.~On the Dover, Ryde. Plentiful on St. Helen's spit. Near Cowes, 

 Steephill, and Ventnor, and most other parts of the coast, Mr. Snooke. [Chalk- 

 pit at Ashey down, three miles from the sea. Dr. Bell-Salter, Edrs.] 



W. Med'. — At Freshwater gate. Abundant along the shore between Norton 

 and the preventive-station. 



Herb extremely brittle, exuding from the fractured part an orange-coloured 

 juice, in small quantity and having the smell of opium. 



Root long, tapering, but little branched, reddish and fleshy externally, with a 

 rough epidermis ; tough, woody and fibrous in the centre, and running deeply 

 down in the loose sandy or shingly beach. Stems several, 2 or 3 feet high, 

 branched, diffuse or partly decumbent, round, solid, quite smooth, with a glaucous 

 bloom. Leaves vi'hitish or sea-green coloured, veined, fleshy, densely clothed with 

 short, erect, rigid and jointed simple hairs, the radical ones and those of the first 

 year numerous, very long, spreading on the ground in a circular form, deeply pin- 

 natifid, their segments waved, angulato-dentate, cut and lobed, diminishing 

 towards the long, seraicylindrical, slightly winged petiole, the terminal segments 

 roundish, 3- or fl-lobed ; those on the stem sessile, the lowest much like those of the 

 root, the upper ones far shorter, broader and less deeply cut, clasping the stem 

 with their deflexed basal lobes, glabrous or very nearly so beneath. Flowers on 

 rather short stalks, lateral and terminal, solitary, very large (above 3 inches in dia- 

 meter), bright yellow verging on orange. Calyx of two large, ovate, concave 

 leaves, bristly, attached to a circular disk on which the stamens are placed, falling 

 off immediately on expansion. Petals 4, fugacious, crumpled, minutely notched 

 along the margin, without claws, the 2 exterior nearly orbicular, the 2 inner 

 wedge-shaped ov cordato-cuneate. Stamens very iiumerous, in several rows ; fila- 

 ments tubular, partly filled with cellular tissue ; anthers erect, saffron-yellow, 

 2-celled, bursting along their outer margins. Germen linear, compressed, with a 

 deep lateral furrow, usually bent, covered with small vesicular points. Stigma 

 yellowish, sessile, of 2 oblong, decurrent or deflexed lobes with a central furrow. Cap- 

 sule pod-like, variously crooked and recurved, 8 — 10 inches to a footer upwards in 

 length, linear, tapering, tipped with the stigma, compressed, with a strong groove 

 on each side, when green scabrous and siibtuberculate, smooth and brownish 

 when ripe, 2-valved, splitting from the apex downwards (not from the base towards 



* I have little doubt the root is mostly if not always biennial. 



