76 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
N. 0. PAPAVERACEiE. 
58. Papaver Rhceas, Linn, h.f.b.i., i. 117. 
Verr\. : — Lala, lal-posta (H.) ; Lai poslita, Lal-poshter- 
gachh (B.) ; jungli-Mudrika (Bomb.) ; Tambadya-Khasa-Khesa- 
che jhada (M.) ; Lala ; lal-khas-khas-nu-jhada (Guz.) ; Lai Khas- 
Khas-ka-jliar (Dec.); Shivappu-gasha-gasha-chedi ; Shigappu- 
postaka-chedi (Tam.); Erra-gassa-gasala chethe; Erra posta- 
Kaya chethe (Tel.) ; Kempu-;Kbasa Khasa Gida (Kan.) ; 
Chovanna Kasha-Kashach-cheti (Malay.). 
Habitat : — Kashmir. 
An annual herb, with a milky juice ; branched, hispid, 1-2 ft, 
high. Leaves 1-2-pi natifid ; leaf-lobes more or less cut, 
ascending, awned. Scapes with spreading and adpressed hairs. 
Flowers scarlet, 3-4 in. diam. Sepals hairly above. Pairs of 
petal unequal ; filaments filiform. Stigmatic rays overlapping, 
i. e. t reaching or exceeding the edge of the disk. Capsule stalked, 
subglobose glabrous. 
Farts used : — The capsules. 
Use : — The milk from the capsufes is narcotic and has slight- 
ly sedative properties. (Watt). 
59. P. dubium Linn. h.F;B.i., i. 117. 
Habitat : — Western Himalaya, from Garhwal to Hazara, in 
cornfields. Simla 4,000-7,000 ft., W. Asia, Europe. 
It resembles P. rhceas, but often glabrous, and leaf segments 
usually narrower ; hairs of scape appressed. Petals scarlet, in 
unequal pairs. Capsule sessile. 
An alkaloid has been extracted from it. 
By extraction of the seed capsules of Papaver dubium with light petro- 
leum, a previously unknown alkaloid, aporeine, is obtained. The thick, 
yellow, amorphous extractive product amounting to 0*0 L5 p. c., yields with 
10 p. c. hydrochloric acid, the hydrochloride, which forms glistening scales, 
melting at about 230°, and gives precipitates with silver nitrate and 
phosphomolybd'ic acid. The base forms microscopic leaflets after crystallisation 
from ether, light petroleum, or chloroform. When a solution of the trace 
of the alkaloid or its hydrochloride in a drop of nitric acid of sp. gr. 1*3 is 
dropped into concentrated sulphuric acid, a violet, brown, and finally yellow 
