P. somníferum, L. (Common Poppy.) Smooth, glaucous; leaves clasping, wavy, incised and toothed; pod globose; corolla mostly white or purple.—Near dwellings in some places. (Adv. from Eu.)
P. dùbium, L. (Smooth-fruited Corn-Poppy.) Pinnatifid leaves and the long stalks bristly; pods club-shaped, smooth; corolla light scarlet.—Cult. grounds, Westchester, Penn., and southward; rare. (Adv. from Eu.)
P. Argemòne, L. (Rough-fruited C.) Smaller, with finer-cut leaves and paler flowers than the last; pods club-shaped and bristly.—Waste grounds, near Philadelphia. (Adv. from Eu.)
6. ARGEMÒNE, L. Prickly Poppy.
Sepals 2 or 3, often prickly. Petals 4–6. Style almost none; stigmas 3–6, radiate. Pod oblong, prickly, opening by 3–6 valves at the top. Seeds crested.—Annuals or biennials, with prickly bristles and yellow juice. Leaves sessile, sinuate-lobed, and with prickly teeth, often blotched with white. Flower-buds erect, short-peduncled. (Name from ἄργεμα, a disease of the eye, for which the juice of a plant so called by the Greeks was a supposed remedy.)
1. A. platýceras, Link & Otto. Setose-hispid all over; petals white, 1½–2´ long; capsule armed with stout spines.—Central Kan. and Neb., south and westward.
A. Mexicàna, L. (Mexican P.) Flowers yellow, rarely white.—Waste places, southward. July–Oct. (Adv. from trop. Amer.) (Addendum)—Argemone Mexicana. Collected at Merodosia, Ill., with white flowers, by A. B. Seymour.
Order 9. FUMARIÀCEÆ. (Fumitory Family.)
Delicate smooth herbs, with watery juice, compound dissected leaves, irregular flowers, with 4 somewhat united petals, 6 diadelphous stamens, and 2-merous pods and seeds like those of the Poppy Family.—Sepals 2, small and scale-like. Corolla flattened, closed; the 4 petals in two pairs; the outer with spreading tips, and one or both of them spurred or saccate at the base; inner pair narrower, and their callous crested tips united over the stigma. Stamens in two sets of 3 each, placed opposite the larger petals, hypogynous; their filaments often united; middle anther of each set 2-celled, the lateral ones 1-celled. Pod 1-celled, either 1-seeded and indehiscent, or several-seeded with 2 parietal placentæ and deciduous valves.—Leaves delicate, usually alternate, without stipules. Slightly bitter, innocent plants.
[*] Corolla bigibbous or 2-spurred, the 2 outer petals alike. Pod several-seeded.