Races Grown.
PAPAVER
somniferum.
the Economic Products of India.
35
CULTIVATION
Races.
men of this variety in one of my plots of kutila in the season 1873-74. I
sowed the seed, but unfortunately none germinated. Again, in the follow-
ing season, I found another plant which has this season afforded me a few
more. I have also unexpectedly got an addition to these from a mongrel
progeny raised first in the season 1874-75. The cross was with kutila as
the female and the safaid-dherri, or common glaucous capsuled poppy,
as male. The effects of the cross were clear on the first season's progeny ;
as with many of the kutila-foliaged variety, there was also a considerable
percentage with the leaves of the male parent— the remainder intermediate.
This season's progeny presents a very small percentage of the male
variety, nearly all having the kutila foliage, and considerably the major
part of the remainder differing chiefly from it in having more entire leaves
Curiously enough, this season I observed that not a few of the
kutila-foliaged plants had capsules of a dull-green colour, quite destitute of
powdery matter. This is also the case, and more generally, with the more
entire-foliaged forms. I was surprised to observe this, as in the previous
season, without an exception, every plant bore glaucous capsules."
7th, "Dusra kutila."—" This is another very distinct variety of more
robust habit than the kutila : plants rather branchy ; leaves oblong-ovate,
From 6 to 12 inches long by 5 to 7 broad, rather deeply cut from about
the middle upwards into from 4 to 6 broad, coarsely toothed, blunt, and
wavy-margined lobes ; texture thick and firm ; the colour a pale sea-green,
the capsules roundish, about two inches in both diameters, covered with a
fine white powdery matter. It affords, as a rule, a fairly copious discharge
of drug to from five to eight incisions. I have, however, as yet only a
very few plants of this variety."
8th, Chaura, or " Tisra kutila."—" A robust but sparingly branched
variety, with oblong, irregularly lobed leaves of a dull sea-green colour,
from 12 to 20 inches long by 4 to 7 broad; the lobes acute or tapering ;
the margins coarsely toothed and wavy. The capsules are of an oblong
shape, from 2 t o 2 ½ i n c h e s l o n g b y 1 ½ t o 2 ¼ i n d i a m e t e r , g l a u c o u s , a n d
fairly copious drug-producers. The opium, as judged by the sample
analysed for me by Dr. Durant, is somewhat richer in alkaloids than the
true kutila, yielding in equal proportions 7.42 per cent. of morphia and
narcotine."
Dusra kutila.
Chaura.
Of the other forms described by Mr. Scott two are striking sports, the
others are admittedly hybrids. The special sports may be here dealt
with :—
9th, " Darhi, or Muedardanthi."—" This is a well-marked new variety,
with bristly flower-stalks which I first observed in one of the poppy plots
here in the season 1873-74. (A Spanish variety of the opium poppy
which I had this season from the Board of Revenue, and directly imported
from that country, presents the same peculiarities in the flower-stalks, but
is very distinct in habit and foliage.) There was but a single plant of it.
I collected the seed, and in the following season raised from it a similarly
characterised progeny. The plant is of a robust, somewhat branchy habit,
and readily distinguished by its strongly setigerous flower-stalk. The
capsules are large, glaucous, and very similar in size and shape to the
preceding- variety. It has hitherto proved a less copious drug-producer
than that variety, but this will no doubt he remedied by the selection of
seed from the best producing capsules. The drug, however, is of excellent
quality, being richer in total alkaloids by 1.03 per cent. (thus in morphine
3.48, narcotine 5.03) than any of our other cultivated sorts : another im-
portant quality is its comparative immunity from the mould infection.
During the season of 1874-75, when the mould was so mischievously pre-
valent on all the other common varieties in the gardens here, this plant
was but very slightly affected. Indeed, for weeks after the sorts on the
Darhi.
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