30 PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



May and June, perennial. Big. It was doubtless introduced, 

 and has become naturalized. The seeds are crested, and dis- 

 posed in a silique-like capsule. Named from the Greek for swal- 

 low, as flowering when that bird appeared ; the English seems to 

 be a corruption of that word. Loudon. 



Sanguinaria. L. 12. 1. 

 S. Canadensis. L. Bloodroot. Named from the red juice 

 of its root, from the Latin sanguis, blood ; bears a single 

 white flower on a stem 6-8 inches high, and sends up radical 

 leaves beautifully lobed, and glaucous underneath ; calyx falls off 

 with the full expansion of the flower ; flowers in April, about dry 

 woods and hedges ; root horizontal, fleshy, zigzag, sending off 

 many radicles, whose bud at the end contains the plant of the 

 next year, a careful dissection of which shows the flower and leaf, 

 and even the stamens, by a small magnifier. Strong medicinal 

 properties, emetic, cathartic. See Bigelow's "Medical Botany." 



Papaver. L. 12. 1. Poppy. 



P. somniferum. L., the common poppy of the gardens, cul- 

 tivated merely for ornament, as a general fact, in our country. 

 The well-known drug, opium, is obtained by incisions of the 

 stem and fruit-vessel ; the white juice becomes dark-colored on 

 exposure to the air, and seems to contain three important sub- 

 stances. The narcotic principle, which produces sleep, is called 

 morphia ; the stimulating power seems to depend on its vegetable 

 alkali, called narcotine ; it also contains meconic acid, called from 

 the Greek name of poppy, which is combined with the morphia 

 as a vegetable alkali. As a medicine, in the hands of the skilful 

 physician, opium, and the preparations from it, are of the highest 

 consequence ; as a drug, used by the people to produce intemper- 

 ance, as in China, &c, its use becomes a tremendous evil. 

 Seeds oily and healthful ; oil is procured from them for adulterat- 

 ing olive oil. Lind. The plant is said to have been used 

 by Theophrastus, three hundred years before the Christian era, 

 for its power as an anodyne. 



P. rhozas. L., is a smaller plant possessing similar properties, 



