the Economic Products of India.
31
PAPAVER
Varieties of the Plant.
somniferum.
C ULTIVATION
Difference
in
yield of
Alkaloids
of
Different
Forms.
value. Thus in one part of his work while commenting on the analysis of
opium produced on certain soils, he remarks :—" The opium was the produce
of one variety ; different varieties vary considerably in their relative richness
in alkaloids. I should state," he continues, " that when these experimental
analyses were made, I had not then observed the remarkable differences in
the drug-producing functions of different individuals,—capsules of certain
plants producing scarcely one grain of drug, while others yielded from
1 8
to 30 grains,—and I had not thus adopted any selective system with a view
to the elimination of the scanty drug-yielding plants and the multiplication
of the most copious drug-producers only. With such individual differences
then, it is easy to see that the relative drug-produce of the respective plots
can afford us no criterion of the comparative fertilities of the soil, as being
largely, indeed wholly, dependent on the proportion of scanty and copious
drug-producing plants on each plot." Referring to this same subject Dr.
Lyell (many years before the date of Scott's discoveries) wrote :—" Only
the white variety of poppy is grown in the Patna and Benares Agencies,
—
a circumstance which probably affects in no slight degree the quality of the
drug, for trials made several years ago in Germany tend to show that of the
three varieties,—the white, red, and purple, —the white poppy yield.; the least
opium and the purple the most of all, and the opium from the last kind con
-
tains nearly three times as much morphia as the white, but only an eighth
part of its narcctine, while the opium from the red poppy is intermediate
between the two. The reason, according to Mr. Fleming, who was for a
long period Opium Agent at Patna, why the white variety is preferred is
because it is known to suit the climate best. The purple flourishes, how
-
ever, luxuriantly in Malwa." But in this connection it may be added that
Mr. Scott found that there were vast differences in the forms of even
the white poppy.
There would seem to underlie these opinions a far greater importance
than the authorities of the Opium Department appear to have given
Mr. Scott credit for. If his views have been, or can be, confirmed by
other investigators, the first step towards improvement would seem naturally
to be the distribution of seed of the peculiar form or race that yields opium
of the desired quality when considered in relation to its quantitative pro
-
duction. Taking this view of the case the writer feels it incumbent on him
to republish the more important facts brought out by Mr. Scott, regarding
the Indian forms of the opium poppy. (Conf. with the concluding remarks
on the Varieties and Races of the Poppy. p. 31.)
CULTIVATED VARIETIES & RACES OF THE POPPY.
VARIETIES.—I n support of the theory that Papaver somniferum has been
derived from P. setigerum by cultivation, it may be stated that Mr. John
Scott, who was specially deputed to study the various forms of the poppy
grown at the Government Agencies, discovered in a field a solitary plant with
bristly or setigerous flower-stalks. He does not expressly state that he re
-
garded the sport alluded to as P. setigerum of botanists, but shortly after
-
wards he obtained from Spain seed of a poppy which, when reared, he found
to closely resemble the sport above mentioned and which he had ever since
continued to cultivate under its vernacular name of darhi. According to
Boissier there are three varieties of P. somniferum. These may be briefly
defined :
Var. Ist, setigerum—Leaves rather acutely denticulate and setose on the ter
-
minal lobe ; peduncles and calyx sparsely setigerous; stigma 7to 8, with openings
below.
A spontaneous form met with both wild and cultivated in the Mediterranean region.
Value
of
Mr. Scott's
Investiga-
tions.
VARIETIES.