These four sub-classes have been divided into orders as follows:—
Orders of Thalamifloræ.
1. Nymphaceæ (Nymphæa alba) White Water-Lily.
(Nuphar luteum) Yellow Water-Lily.
This order contains water plants of great beauty, they grow in the mud at the bottom of the water, sending up long flower- and leaf-stalks so that the flowers may blossom in the air and the leaves float on the surface; the leaves are generally round and turned up slightly at the edges. The "Victoria Regia" is a magnificent specimen of this order; it originally came from Brazil, and has flowers a foot wide, leaves four or five feet across, and is sufficiently buoyant, it is said, to bear the weight of a child. The Lotus of the Nile, the blossom of which so frequently occurs on the carvings of the Egyptians as an offering to Isis, is another member of this order.
White Water-Lily.
2. Papaveraceæ (Papaver somniferum) White Poppy.
(Papaver Rhœas) Red Poppy.
White Poppy. Red Poppy.
Opium is prepared from the unripe capsules of the White Poppy, it is chiefly cultivated for this purpose in India and Turkey. The Chinese are the great consumers of opium, it being a common habit with them both to eat and smoke it. Opium is made by collecting the juice in the morning which has exuded from incisions made in the capsules over night; those employed for this purpose use a small knife with several blades and go round the plantations scarifying the capsules in the evening, and the juice which issues and forms a thick concrete matter, is scraped off, beaten up, and dried in round lumps. About £2,000,000 worth are exported from India annually.