Illustrations of the principal natural orders of the vegetable kingdom / prepared for the Science and Art Department of the Council of Education by Professor Oliver ; the plates by W.H. Fitch.

  • Oliver, Daniel, 1830-1916.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of the principal natural orders of the vegetable kingdom / prepared for the Science and Art Department of the Council of Education by Professor Oliver ; the plates by W.H. Fitch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/388 (page 6)
    Natural Order PAPAVERACE^. Tab. 5. D lAGNOSis.—Herbs with yellow or milky juice. Flowers regular, dime- Stamens hypogynous, indefinite, free. Pistil syncarpous ; placentas parietal. Seeds albuminous. rous. Distribution.—A small Natural Order, chiefly confined to the North Temperate zone. Several of the Poppies (Papaver) are wide-spread weeds of cultivation. Number of British Genera, 5; Species, 8. Leaves usually lobed or dissected. Flowers solitary, large, fugacious, on long peduncles. Sepals 2, rarely more, falling on expansion of the flower ; forming an extinguisher-like cap in Eschscholtzia. Petals 4-6, crumpled in bud. Stamens perigynous in Eschscholtzia. Ovary one-celled, the base sheathed by the receptacle in Eschscholtzia; in Poppy (Papaver) the placentas often nearly reaching to the centre of the flower, but without cohering. Ovules in Poppy covering the sides of the infolded carpellary margins. Fruit a capsule, dehiscing by pores immediately underneath the apex in Poppy ; narrow, elongate, and two- valved in Celandine (Chclidonium) and Horned Poppy (Glaucium). USES, &c.—Papaver somniferum affords the important narcotic drug Opium, and its derivatives Laudanum and Morphia ; it is largely cultivated in the Levant and in India. Opium is the inspissated milky juice collected from gashes made in the unripe fruit. The seeds of Opium Poppy yield a wholesome oil. The orange-coloured juice of Celandine has a popular reputation for the cure of warts. Several of the Poppies, especially double varieties of the common Scarlet Poppy (Papaver Rkceas), Opium Poppy, and the large scarlet-flowered P. orientate and P. bracteatum, also the Californian orange-flowered annual Eschscholtzia and its ally Platystemon, are common in gardens.