866 
ON PLANTS IN RELATION TO ANIMALS. 
are about a score of genera, Papaver , EscJischoltzia, Argemone, 
Platystemon, and Chelidonium, and nearly 150 species.”* 
Tor a general history of the genus Papaver we quote the fol¬ 
lowing from the pen of Dr. Maxwell Masters : - 
" PAP AYER. 
“A well-known genus typical of the Papaver acece, consisting 
of herbs with a milky juice, distributed over Europe and temperate 
Asia chiefly, though one or two are described as natives of Aus¬ 
tralia and South Africa. Some of the species, however, are to 
be met with in many other parts of globe, to which they have 
been introduced by cultivation or commercial intercourse. The 
roots are fibrous; the leaves generally lobed or toothed and 
hairy; the flower stalks axillary, solitary, without bracts, but 
terminated by a single flower, with two or three concave de¬ 
ciduous sepals, four or six petals, very numerous stamens, and 
an ovary of four or more carpels conjoined, and capped by a 
radiating compound stigma. 
The fruit is capsular, with parietal placentae projecting into 
the interior, opening by pores or short valves beneath the 
projecting margin of the stigma. 
The field poppy, P. Rhoeas, one of the most brilliant of our 
wild plants, decorating cornfields, railway banks, and waste 
places with a perfect blaze of crimson flowers, is distinguished 
from the other British species by its smooth and globular fruits, 
and by the bristles which clothe the stem, speading out almost 
at right angles with it. The petals are collected for the purpose 
of making a coloured syrup, which has, at the same time, very 
slight narcotic properties. The seeds might possibly be used 
for the oil they contain, and they are by no means destitute of 
nutritive properties. Double-flowered varieties, of various 
colours, are not unfrequently grown in gardens as highly orna¬ 
mental annual plants. P. dubium, frequently met with in some 
parts of the country, is a smaller, more slender plant than P. 
Rhoeas, and may be at once distinguished by the capsule, which 
is twice as long as broad, and by the bristles, which are flat¬ 
tened up against the stem. P. liybridum is less branched than 
the field poppy, which it greatly resembles, but differs in the fila¬ 
ments of the stamens, which are dilated from below upwards, 
and in the capsule, which, though globular, is covered with stiff 
bristles. This species is rare in this country. P. Argemone is 
the smallest of the British poppies; its capsule is in shape like 
that of P. dubium, but it has a few stiff hairs or bristles, which 
are directed upwards. 
Several species are cultivated in English gardens for ornamental 
* ‘ The Treasury of Botany,’ p. 841, 
