Opium for the Masses by Hogshire Jim

Author:Hogshire, Jim [Hogshire, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781936239016
Publisher: Feral House
Published: 2010-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

The plant itself sends up one main stem, which branches into several, thinner stems sort of like a candelabra. It is at the end of each of these stems that the plant forms a bulb, which is normally pointed downward as if the flower were hanging its head. To multiply the number of heads per plant, pinch off the first bud that forms. This causes the plant to produce a number of new shoots, each with a seed head. A poppy plant normally produces between three and five heads. The leaves of the poppy are a kind of dusty “glaucous” green, and the edges are softly serrated. From a distance, young poppy plants look a lot like dandelions.

As each bulb or pod matures, it splits and rises up, eventually spreading out into the flower with a small seed head in the middle. At this time the head may be no bigger than the eraser on the end of a pencil but it will have the distinctive crown.

The flowers typically don’t last too long, a couple of weeks at most, before the petals fall off. Some poppies bloom for only a few days before they start dropping their petals. Although the petals aren’t too fragrant, it’s still possible to make perfume from them, and in the old days, they were used to wrap balls of opium—looking like red paper and even tinting the opium a bit.

Now the head begins to grow in earnest. Some say they are “ripe” ten days after the petals fall off, but this is not a hard and fast rule and ripeness can take as long as three weeks. Inside, the head is divided into eight to 12 vertical, crescent-shaped seed chambers. At first these seeds are soft, white beads that gradually ripen inside the head. This ripening can even occur inside poppy heads that have been severed from the plant and refrigerated. As the seeds ripen and dry, the head grows.

At this stage the poppy doesn’t need any more water and the opium it produces will be more concentrated and potent if the plant stays dry. In fact, heavy rains during this time can leach the alkaloids out of the plant and weaken the opium. Poppies are also susceptible to rot should the ground become waterlogged. For this reason, it’s best to plant poppies on a 20- to 40-degree slope for good drainage.

Once the head reaches maximum size, tiny portals to the seed chambers open up just beneath the crown and the wind begins to draw the dried poppy seeds from inside. Outside the capsule, the seeds are either carried by the wind or upon water or even carried away by ants.

Poppy seeds—red or black—are very small, and look like tiny specks to the naked eye. But take a magnifying glass to them and you’ll see the seeds are kidney-shaped, slightly elongated and pitted with regular indentations forming a pattern over the skin of the seed. Under stronger magnification (50X) the skin of the seed looks like a peanut’s.

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