P. DUBIUM. Capsules oblong, smooth, angular: stem many-flowered, hairy fruit-stalks with bristles adpressed: leaves doubly pinnatifid.

(E. Bot. 644. E.)-Curt. 297-Walc.-H. Ox. iii. 14. 11-Pet. 52. 3. Stem (two feet high, E.) woolly, below, more and more bristly upwards, the bristles on the fruit-stalks laid close. Leaves, segments entire, edges and mid-ribs hairy. Capsules conical, much longer than broad; rays of the summit from six to ten. (As the capsules ripen the lower part curiously shrinks from the lid sufficiently to admit the genial influence of the warm air, and the escape of the mature seeds, without endangering them by exposure to wet. E.) Petals dilute scarlet. A strict attention to the proportionate length and breadth of the capsule, and to the hairs on the fruit-stalk being laid close or expanding, will readily distinguish this species from P. rhæas. (Flowers always known from our other red Poppies by their paleness. Sm. E.)

LONG SMOOTH-HEADED POPPY. (Welsh: Drewg Hirben-llyfn._ E.) Cornfields, chiefly in light sandy land. A. June-July.

(About Shanklin Chine, and other parts of the Isle of Wight, is found an extremely hirsute var. as represented in Fl. Dan. 902: the calyx studded with large transparent globules, with a bristle springing out of each. The capsule is nearly twice as long as it is broad, longer than in P.rhœas, shorter than in P. dubium.

P. SOMNIFERUM. Capsule smooth, nearly globular, as are the calyx and stem: leaves embracing the stem, jagged, glaucous.

(E. Bot. 2145. E.)-Blackw. 482. B 482-Woodv. 185-Dod. 445. 2—Lob. Obs. 142. 1, and Ic. 272. 2-Ger. Em. 369. 1-Park. 366. 2-Fuchs. 518 -Dod. 445. 1-Lob. Obs. 464. 1, and Ic. i. 274. 1-Ger. Em. 369. 2 ß— Park. 365. 1—J. B. 390—Matth. 1058-Ger. 296. 1—Ger. 296. 2 ßTrag. 122-Lob. Obs. 464. 1, and Ic. i. 274. 2-Ger. Em. 370.

Petals white, tinged with purple, with large deep purple blotches at the base. Ray. (Flowers very large. The whole plant glaucous. Stem three feet high, smooth in the lower part, rough upwards with expanding hairs. E.)

WHITE POPPY. (OPIUM POPPY. E.) Uncultivated neglected gardens. Ray. Corn-fields. Hudson. Water beach, and banks of the closes which separate Denny Farm from the Ely road. Relhan. (Certainly wild on the banks of all the fen ditches, where the soil is sandy, in the parish of Hockwold cum Wilton, Norfolk. Rev. Mr. White, in Fl. Brit. Near the observatory, Oxford; and by Godstow Nunnery. Sibthorp. Willington Ballast Hills, Durham; and about Rochester. Mr. Winch. About Delavine House, near Coupar, Angus-shire. Miss Watson, in E.

66

glorying in, their charms." And how much is there in this flower corresponding with the nature of man. The root, like the infancy of the human plant, contains the whole of the future being; but who can look at either, and form an estimate of their physical and moral beauty. The gradual unfolding of the leaves resembles the progressive stages of education; till at length the human plant stands forth in all the strength of his faculties, an intellectual and moral agent. But, unlike the brilliant Poppy, he is not the flower of a day. The seeds of piety to God, and benevolence to man, are ripened in his bosom, destined to germinate and blossom in a richer soil, the garden of immortality." Wonders of the Veg. Kingdom, p. 72. E.)

Bot. (Moat of Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, with flowers much smaller than the cultivated sort. Mr. W. Christy. E.) A. June-July.

Opium is the milky juice of this plant, inspissated by the heat of the sun. The Edinburgh College directs an extract to be prepared from the heads, i. e. the capsules. This extract is supposed to be milder in its effects than the foreign Opium, agreeing with many constitutions by which that cannot be borne, but it requires double the quantity for a dose: (nevertheless, it is asserted that those who walk through fields of Poppies, or in any manner prepare those flowers for making Opium, are very sensibly affected with the drowsiness they occasion. A syrup, made with a decoction of the heads, is kept in the shops, under the name of Diacodion. The seeds are sometimes used to make emulsions, but they have nothing of the narcotic virtues of the other parts of the plant. The Persians and Germans are said still to sprinkle these seeds over their rice and wheaten cakes, a practice of great antiquity. They are also sometimes sent to table mixed with boney. Gerard reports that "the seedes are often used in comfits, or served at the table with other junketting dishes: the oile which is pressed out is pleasant and delightfull to be eaten." M. Robiquet, has discovered that the narcotic quality of the Poppy is owing to a crystallizable substance called morphium, which possesses some properties in common with ammonia. It seems to be a solid and combustible alkali: its action on the animal economy is violent, even in the smallest quantity. This plant is cultivated in Flanders, also in England, largely about Evesham, and Kettering, for the above named purposes; and for the sake of the seeds, from which an oil is extracted little inferior to olive oil, and often substituted for Florentine. The seeds consist of a simple farinaceous matter united with a bland oil used by painters. They have been given in the form of emulsion in catarrhs. But a principal purpose for which Maw-seeds are raised in large quantities is as food for birds, and heuce the vulgar name.

As observed in the "Wonders of the Vegetable Kingdom," when the petals of the Poppy fall off, the seed-vessel which rises in the centre, is completely closed. In process of time, as the seeds begin to ripen, the cover is gradually elevated, till as length it exhibits a beautiful little dome, supported by a circular range of pillars, which form so many openings for the escape of the imprisoned seeds, which not unfrequently amount to many thousands in a single capsule. Another singularity is thus noticed by Paley. "The head while growing hangs down, a rigid curvature in the upper part of the stem giving it that position, and in that position it is impenetrable to rain or moisture. When the head has acquired its size, and is ready to open, the stalk erects itself, for the purpose, as it should seem, of presenting the flower, and the instruments of fructification, to the genial influence of the sun's rays, a curious instance of the attention of nature to the safety and maturation of the parts upon which the seed depends." The silken tissue of the petals proves a talisman for Cupid, for, according to the practice of youthful lovers,—

"By a prophetic Poppy-leaf I found

Your chang'd affection; for it gave no sound,
Though in my hand struck hollow as it lay,
But quickly wither'd like your love away.”

Many fine varieties of these flowers are produced by garden culture. The Society of Arts rewarded Mr. Ball, of Williton, Somerset, for preparing Opium from Poppies of British growth. The most productive flowers are large, rather dark, but varying in colour, and somewhat double. The seeds should be sown in February, and again in March, in soil well manured and worked fine, either in drills or broad-cast, to be thinned when a few inches high, and kept free from weeds. When the leaves fade, longtitudinal incisions must be made in the green pods; the glutinous fluid will adhere to the plant, and in a day or two be inspissated by the sun, and ready for scraping off with a knife. It may shortly after be potted. This production has been declared by competent judges to be equally powerful with, and vastly more pure than, the best foreign Opium. The profit from an acre of suitable land, with a southern aspect, and where labour is cheap, must be very considerable. The above account is corroborated by the experiments of Dr. Fox, at Brislington, near Bristol, excepting as to the proportionate strength of the article. Messrs. Cowley and Staines, of Winslow, Bucks, in 1824, received a reward of thirty guineas for cultivating twelve acres of Poppies, and

P. CAM'BRICUM. Capsule smooth, oblong, beaked: stem many-flowered, nearly smooth: leaves winged, jagged, stalked.

obtaining therefrom 196 lbs. of Opium, which sold for two shillings per pound more than any of foreign growth. The cultivation of the Poppy has been strongly recommended as an employment for the poor. A practical treatise, describing the whole process, with the instruments for cutting and collecting, may be had at Northampton, or of Mr. Dash, Kettering. The general supply has always been obtained by importation from Persia, Egypt, Smyrna, and the East Indies; but were this provided at home, light labour, suitable even to women and children, would be very considerable, and large sums of money kept in the country. Opium, properly so called, is the hardened juice of Poppy heads; Meconium is the juice of heads and leaves mixed, and not so powerful. The remarks here offered apply not only to foreign Opium, but, more or less, to our native produce. Though in ordinary cases a single grain of Opium may sometimes prove too large a dose, the quantity to which the human constitution may be gradually habituated, is astonishing. In countries where the prevailing religion prohibits the use of wine, as in Turkey, the Barbary States, Egypt, and throughout a large part of Hindoostan, solid Opium, by progressive habit, is sometimes taken to the amount of half an ounce or more each day, without producing any other effect than a temporary inebriety. Garcias relates that he knew an individual who daily swallowed ten drams! Though this drug is wont to transport the enervated Asiatic to extatic bliss, the Eastern despot occasionally applies it to the prompt extinction of life in state criminals. The heat of such climates is supposed to concentrate its deadly particles: as an antidote to which modern chemists have ascertained acids to be most effectual. But the habitual practice of Opium taking, even under the most plausible pretexts, cannot be too strongly deprecated, as not less immoral and pernicious than any other species of debauchery; not merely enervating the system, but depriving the unhappy transgressor of a remedy most efficacious on proper occasions. However great the temptation to fly to so wretched a subterfuge, the man of courage and principle will shun

"Poppies which suborn the sleep of death."

Dr. Drummond, in his admirable "First Steps to Botany," very justly remarks, that Opium "allays pain, and lightens sorrow, diffuses a pleasing langour over the frame, and gives unusual serenity to the mind, dispelling from it every apprehension of sublunary evil, and steeping it in scenes of Elysium. It is indeed an agent which can, for a period at least,

"Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And, with a sweet oblivious antidote,

Cleanse the full bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart."

But this is only for a time, and the charm being dissolved, the soul awakes from its trance only to experience aggravated woe, in those at least, (and even in Britain the number is not small), who have fallen into the habitual use of this drug. If there be on earth a misery that approaches what we might be allowed to conceive as among the worst sufferings of a future place of punishment, it is the state of an Opium-eater, after the action of bis dose has subsided. Unhappy and trembling, his head confused, and his stomach sick, remorse at his heart, but his resolution too feeble to attempt a reformation; feeling as an outcast from every thing that is good or great, he returns despairing to a repetition of his dose, and every repetition adds confirmation to the evil habit. His constitution becomes exhausted in a few years; he grows prematurely old, and dies of palsy, dropsy, or some disease as fatal: he dies, having by his own weakness and imprudence lived a life of wretchedness in this world, and looking forward at his exit to the darkest scenes of misery in the next. How often does man turn the greatest blessings into the greatest curse!" Should this accurate description prove insufficient to deter the tempted from yielding to a fascination more fatal than that of the serpent, let him read, with trembling, "the Confessions of an English Opium Eater."

After the above warning, we may venture to listen to the concluding lines, even of a rapturous encomium of the Poppy:

Dill. Elth. 223. 290-E. Bot. 66-Park. 369. 4-H. Ox. iii. 14. 12-Pet. 52.4.

(Plant twelve to eighteen inches high; leaves glaucous beneath. E.) Leaves winged, nearly smooth; root-leaves on very long hairy leafstalks; wings two or three pair, oval-spear-shaped, deeply cut, almost

"Heedless I past thee in life's morning hour,

Thou comforter of woe!

Till sorrow taught me to confess thy power.

Hail sacred blossom! thou canst ease

The wretched victims of disease;

Canst close those weary eyes in gentle sleep,

That never open but to weep;

For oh! thy potent charm

Can agonizing pain disarm,

Expel imperious memory from her seat,

And bid the throbbing heart forget to beat.

Soul-soothing plant! that can such blessings give,
By thee the mourner bears to live;
By thee the hopeless die !

Oh, ever friendly to despair!
Might sorrow's palid votary dare,

Without a crime, (a) that remedy implore
Which bids the spirit from its bondage fly,
I'd court thy palliative aid no more;
No more I'd sue that thou shouldst spread
Thy spell around my aching head,

But would conjure thee to impart
Thy balsam for a broken heart;
And by thy soft Lethean power,
(Inestimable flower!)

Burst these terrestrial bonds,
And other regions try."

Despite, however, the most empassioned strains, breathing the deep tone of feeling too cruelly agitated, we cannot but reiterate, while, in sympathy for human frailty, we pity more than blame the infirmity of our common nature, lamentable indeed is it that man, the rational being, turning from the only true source of genuine consolation, should, as the beast that perisheth,

"From the low earth tear a polluting weed;" E.)

(a) (These fine lines were composed by the Hon. H. F————— at a period when that amiable and accomplished female was indeed but " too severely tried," and it is hoped that ere the conclusion of her sufferings she derived some comfort from the friendship and professional skill of Dr. Withering. As connected with the subject immediately before us, it may perhaps be allowable here to introduce our Author's own sentiments, as communicated to another lady, who, also, in her sad extremity confidentially sought the solace of bis advice. "To encourage a desire to die is an unworthy tendency to desert the post allotted to us; and if such desires once become motives to make us neglect the means of restoring or preserving health; such motives and such conduct, directly or indirectly tending to cut short our existence, are, perhaps, altogether as indefensible and as wicked, as the still shorter modes of the pistol or the halter." Memoirs and Tracts of Dr. Withering. p. 182. E.)

lobed, the terminal one with three lobes; stem-leaves on short fruitstalks, the upper sessile. Fruit-stalk slightly hairy, with one flower. Petals egg-shaped, pale yellow, scored towards the base. Woodw. (Juice lemon-coloured. E.)

YELLOW POPFY. Mountains of Wales, and about Kendal. By the Ferry-house on Winandermere, Westmoreland; and near Holker, Lancashire. Mr. Woodward. (Mossdale head in Wensley Dale, Yorkshire. Mr. Brunton. On the Breiddin Hills, Montgomeryshire. Mr. Aikin. Craig Cwm Pistill, near Newton, ditto. Dr. Evans. About Pont Nedd Vachn, Aberdylais, &c. Glamorganshire, plentiful. Dillwyn. Bot. Guide. Near Pont Meredith, Denbighshire. Mr. Griffith. (At the waterfall of Lidford, on the borders of Dartmoor; and woods about Endsleigh and Dunterton. Rev. J. Pike Jones. Near Portingseale, Cumberland. Mr. Winch. Braid woods. Mr. Arnott. Grev. Edin. Benbulben, Sligo. E. Murphy, Esq. E.) P. June-Aug."

NYMPHEA.† (Cal. four or five-leaved, larger than the petals : Pet. numerous, inserted on the germen beneath the stamens: Berry many-celled, with a cortical coat: Nectary on the stigma. E.)

N. ALBA.

Leaves heart-shaped, very entire, (even beneath: calyx four-leaved: : stigma of sixteen ascending rays. E.)

Fl. Dan. 605-Blackw. 498. a. and b. and 499-E. Bot. 160-Fuchs. 535Trag. 696-J. B. iii. 770—Gmel. iv. 71—Matth. 893—Ger. 672. 1—Clus. ii. 77. 1-Dod. 585. 1-Lob. Obs. 324. 1, and Ic. i. 595. 1—Ger. Em. 819. 1-Park. 1351. 1-Pet. 71. 1.

(Leaves a span wide, oval, with a deep notch at the base. Leaf-stalks and flower-stalks cylindrical, cellular. Blossoms several inches over; pistils and stamens yellow.

This most beautiful aquatic, the largest of its kind, floats its splendid white, or pinkish flowers, by broad leaves. E.)

WHITE WATER-LILY. WATER-ROSE. WATER-CAN. CAN-DOCK. (Irish: Curririn ban. Welsh: Alaw; Magwyr wen. Gaelic: An duilleag-bhait; Rabhagach. E.) In slow rivers and ponds. Marazion Marsh. Mr. Stackhouse. (More frequent in ponds about Liverpool than N. lutea. Dr. Bostock: as in Somersetshire. E.) Equally common in the rivers and lakes of Norfolk and Suffolk with N. lutea. Mr. Woodward. Mere, near Scarborough. Mr. Travis. Between Blandford and Durweston; common in the rivers Stour and Avon. Pulteney. (In Greenley lake, and Bromley lake, near Shewing Shields, Northumberland. Winch Guide. Both species frequent in Anglesey. Welsh Bot. Ragley, Warwickshire; Snowdon Pool, near Bridgnorth. Purton. Seen to the greatest perfection in the little bays and inlets of pellucid alpine lakes: in Loch Lomond acres are densely covered with it. Hooker. In all the northern English lakes. Mr. Winch. E.) River Sow, near Stafford. In the large pool at Patshull, Staffordshire. P.July.

(Papaver Cambricum, Servatula alpina, and Rhodiola rosea, were first identified as British plants by the celebrated apothecary and herbalist Thomas Johnson, in a botanical excursion to explore Snowdonia. Haplessly forsaking science for the sword, he shortly afterwards fell in the royal cause, an. 1644. E.)

✦ (The Nuupain, of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, from being found in the haunts of the water Nymphs. E.)

It extends itself by long runners terminating in a bulbous root, and sending up leaf