Papaveraceae
Papaver Linnaeus
poppy
northern temperate zone; introduced into Australasia
Not only was no distinction apparently drawn in folk medicine between the
various red-flowered Papaver species of cornfields, but the name is also used
as shorthand for opium poppy,P.s omniferum Linnaeus, as well as for the
product extracted from that. All have soporific and painkilling properties,
but opium is not present in significant amounts in the European cornfield
species. Though there is archaeological evidence that P. s omniferum was in
Britain at least by the Bronze Age (though under what circumstances is not
clear), it does not appear to have been grown extensively here as a commer-
cial crop until the nineteenth century and even then it was latterly widely
abandoned as unprofitable, as Asian imports rendered opium so cheap that
it could be bought over the counter for as little as twopence.
In the fen country of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, where ‘ague’ (in
part malaria) was historically endemic and still prevalent well into the Victo-
rian era, a presumably age-old dependence there on the local cornfield spe-
cies as the source of ‘poppy tea’, the standard treatment for both ‘ague’ and
rheumatism, at some point mutated into a general adoption ofPapaver som-
niferum instead. A patch of the favoured white-flowered form of that became
a feature of cottage gardens throughout the region, enabling consumption to
be raised so much that for several months of the year the Fenland people
were largely drugged with opium, a fact to which their stunted physique was
commonly attributed.^67 The capsules, gathered green, might be boiled in
beer as an alternative to the tea.^68
Though the cornfield species are only mildly narcotic, it can probably be
safely assumed that the recorded folk uses of ‘poppies’ were mostly if not
wholly shared by them as well, either before the advent ofPapaver somni-
ferum or as an inferior stand-in for that or for opium itself. Any or all, but lat-
terly the cultivated plant in particular, appear to have been drawn on as a
means of calming babies, during teething or when fevered or otherwise frac-
tious (Norfolk,^69 Isle of Man,^70 South Uist in the Outer Hebrides^71 ), either by
macerating the petals in the milk for the baby’s bottle or dipping the rubber
teat in the seeds. This was doubtless a once widespread practice in rural areas
which enjoyed a recrudescence, or maybe independent development, in the
cities when opium took over there from gin, its notorious predecessor in that
function.
Water-lilies, Buttercups and Poppies 77