Papaver somniferum

• 1. Introduction

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  Papaver somniferum, known as the opium poppy or breadseed poppy, is the one plant that supplies both morphine and the seeds that decorate baked goods. In 1987, agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Thomas Jefferson's Monticello estate. They removed poppies that had been planted there continually since Jefferson's own lifetime, when he used opium from them. Employees of the estate's foundation then destroyed gift shop shirts and packets of heirloom seed that carried the poppy's image.

  How can a single species be a garden ornament, a pastry filling, a raw material for medicine and a target of federal agents? What makes one plant so useful, and so hard for governments to agree on?

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• 2. Anatomy and Names

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  Reaching about 100 centimetres in height, Papaver somniferum is an annual herb with a distinctly greyish-green look. Sparse, coarse hairs dot the stem and leaves. The large leaves are lobed. Those high on the stem clasp it, while the lowest ones have a short stalk. Its flowers can span 8 to 18 centimetres. Most have four petals in red, white or mauve, and many show a dark patch at the base of each petal. The fruit is a hairless, rounded capsule capped with a fluted crown of 12 to 18 radiating rays. Wound any part of the plant and white latex runs out.

  Macaronesia and the western and central Mediterranean are the probable native range of the opium poppy. Cultivation and introduction across Europe since ancient times have blurred that picture. In the British Isles the plant has escaped from gardens and naturalised widely, especially in the south and east. Its seeds have turned up in archaeological material from the Bronze Age. It also grows wild in almost every other country with a suitable temperate climate.

  The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus gave the plant its accepted name on page 508 of his Species Plantarum in 1753. Today two subspecies and one natural hybrid are accepted. The subspecies setigerum was first named Papaver setigerum in 1815 by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. Giovanni Arcangeli demoted it to a subspecies in 1882. It is native to North Africa from Morocco to Libya, and to southern Europe from Portugal to Italy. The hybrid is native to France. It was described as Papaver × authemanii in 1893 and reclassified under the poppy's name in 2012. The third form, subspecies somniferum, is a cultigen, meaning a plant shaped by human selection.

  The list of discarded synonyms is long. It runs from Papaver album-nigrum in 1763 to a variety called leucum in 1987.

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• 3. Sleep in the Sap

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  The species name somniferum means sleep-bringing, a nod to the sedative effects of some of the plant's alkaloids. Cuts made in the green seed pods ooze latex, which is collected once it dries. That dried latex is opium. It holds a family of naturally occurring alkaloids called opiates: morphine, codeine, thebaine, oripavine, papaverine and noscapine.

  Raw opium is about 8 to 14 percent morphine by dry weight, and higher in high-yield cultivars. Morphine is the main alkaloid in the varieties grown for opium. Other cultivars make little opium or none, such as the latex-free Sujata type. Some are planted for high levels of thebaine or oripavine, which are refined into drugs like oxycodone. The drug family anchored by the plant stretches from natural codeine to synthetic painkillers such as fentanyl and methadone. It also includes diamorphine, better known as heroin.

  Laudanum is opium dissolved in alcohol, or in a mixture of alcohol and water. In the United States it is still sold as one of many unapproved drugs regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. It persists because its use came before the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938. A British Pharmacopoeia tincture of opium holding 1 percent anhydrous morphine also remains listed, as a Class A substance under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

  Inside the plant, the chemistry begins with the amino acid phenylalanine, which an enzyme turns into tyrosine. Tyrosine then follows one of two routes. One leads to L-DOPA, and the other to a compound called 4-HPAA. The two combine to form (S)-norcoclaurine, which carries the benzylisoquinoline skeleton that gives the pathway its name. The next step, to (S)-reticuline, is a key junction. From there the plant can build morphine, noscapine and other alkaloids.

  The genome holds 51,213 protein-coding genes. About 81.6 percent of them sit on 11 chromosomes, and the rest lie on unplaced scaffolds. Repetitive elements make up 70.9 percent of the genome, chiefly long terminal repeat retrotransposons. Analysis shows segmental duplications about 110 million years ago, before the poppy family split from the buttercup family. A duplication of the whole genome followed about 7.8 million years ago.

  Genes that convert (S)-reticuline into noscapine, and into thebaine, are found on chromosome 11. Genes that process thebaine are spread across chromosomes 1, 2 and 7, and perhaps others, so the pathway is not housed in one tidy place.

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• 4. Empire and Opium

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  The ancient Minoans already knew how to make and use opium, and the poppy's use predates written history. The ancient Greeks named its sap opion, and the English word comes from the Latin form of that Greek name. Botanical remains from Neolithic sites around the Mediterranean and west of the Rhine, dated to before about 5000 BC, show early domestication and a natural spread across western Europe. Opium was used to treat asthma, stomach illnesses and bad eyesight.

  In 1683, members of the East India Company began to see the opium trade as an investment. Opium became a major colonial commodity, moving legally and illegally through the Indian subcontinent, the Colonial United States and Qing China. In 1773, the Governor of Bengal set up a monopoly on Bengal opium production on behalf of the company's administration. A series of acts issued between 1797 and 1949 further centralised and controlled the growing and manufacture of Indian opium.

  Company merchants needed to offset a deficit created by importing Chinese tea. They sold Indian opium to fill the gap, and it was smuggled into China in defiance of Qing government bans. That trade led to the First and Second Opium Wars.

  In the 19th century in particular, writers took up the poppy and its effects. Thomas de Quincey wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater. The French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz used opium for inspiration and went on to produce his Symphonie Fantastique. In that work, a young artist overdoses on opium and sees visions of his unrequited love. In Amitav Ghosh's novel Sea of Poppies, the poppy is a central theme, and the main setting is the poppy fields of the Ganges River Plain.

  The flower and fruit of the opium poppy appear on the coat of arms of the Royal College of Anaesthetists.

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• 5. Growing the Crop

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  Farmers grow Papaver somniferum on a large scale for one of three main purposes. The first is poppy seed. The second is opium, used mainly by the pharmaceutical industry. The third is other alkaloids, chiefly thebaine and oripavine, which drug makers process into medicines such as hydrocodone. Each goal has its own breeds, and breeding work, including biotechnology, never stops.

  Neolithic use gave the plant a very long head start, and today there are 52 botanical varieties. Breeders still face contradictory goals. Medical uses call for a very high alkaloid content, and global demand for the alkaloids and their derived drugs has grown in recent years. The food industry wants alkaloid levels as low as possible. Cultivars that differ this much in opium content carry strong implications for legal policy.

  Six stages mark the plant's development. Seedlings come first, then the rosette of leaves and stalks, then budding at the hook stage. Flowering follows. Next comes technical maturity, when the plant is ready for cutting. Biological maturity ends the cycle, when dry seeds ripen. The length of daylight appears to be the main driver of flower development.

  Growth is very slow early in the season, so weeds compete hard. Controlling them during the first 50 days after sowing is essential. The plant is also fairly sensitive to herbicides. The herbicide chlortoluron, applied before emergence, has reduced weed levels. Over the last decade, growers have shifted to treatments after emergence. Mesotrione and tembotrione have become popular, and using the two together is recommended. Papaver rhoeas, a close relative in the same family, is a highly abundant weed in poppy fields. That kinship makes chemical control harder, so mechanical weeding is used alongside it.

  A density of 70 to 80 plants per square metre is recommended. The ratio of latex to plant mass is highest under a slight water deficit.

  Downy mildew caused by Peronospora arborescens strikes most often in wet and humid conditions. A second species, Peronospora somniferi, causes infections that spread through the plant and leave it stunted and deformed. Leaf blight from the fungus Helminthosporium papaveris is among the most destructive poppy diseases worldwide. It is carried in seed, rots the roots of young plants and spreads from the leaves to capsules and seeds. Early sowing and deep ploughing of poppy residues reduce the fungus the following year.

  In 2006, a new virus was isolated in New Zealand from poppies showing leaf mosaic and mottling. It was tentatively named opium poppy mosaic virus. Pests are comparatively few. Flea beetles perforate the leaves of young plants, and aphids suck sap from the flower buds. The poppy root weevil, Stenocarus ruficornis, lives in the soil and moves into fields in spring. Females lay eggs in the lower leaves, and the larvae hatch and burrow down to the roots.

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• 6. A Garden Favourite

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  Seed companies and nurseries across most of the western world, including the United States, sell live opium poppy plants and seeds. Gardeners prize the vivid colour of the flowers and the hardiness and reliability of the plants. Some cultivars carry an exotic chocolate-vegetal fragrance. The plants are easy to raise, whether bought as flats of seedlings or sown directly. Dried seed pods are also sold for flower arrangements.

  Breeders have selected ornamental cultivars for colour, petal count and other traits. Double-flowered kinds are often called peony flowered, or paeoniflorum, and come in a range of colours. The cultivar called Hen and Chickens was chosen for pod shape, with smaller pods clustered around a larger central one.

  Every summer, opium poppies flower in gardens throughout North America and Europe. Displays appear in private plantings and in public collections, including the United States Botanical Garden, the Missouri Botanical Garden and the North Carolina Botanical Garden.

  Gardeners are a small market, though. Only a comparatively small amount of commercial seed is produced for ornamental purposes.

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• 7. Seeds and Markets

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  In 2018, the world produced 76,240 tonnes of poppy seed for eating, and Turkey supplied 35 percent of the total. Yields swing from year to year because most genotypes react strongly to environmental change. Between 2008 and 2009, the market value stagnated after high stock levels, bad weather and poor quality. India is the leading importer, at 16,000 tonnes, followed by Russia, Poland and Germany.

  In most of Central and Eastern Europe, poppy seed fills traditional pastries and cakes. Bakers use the seeds whole to decorate their products, or mill them and mix them with sugar for a sweet filling. The flavour is creamy and nut-like. Dry roasted and ground with coconut, the seeds make a flavour-rich base for wet or dry curry. The seeds contain very low levels of opiates, and the oil pressed from them contains even less.

  Poppy seed oil is edible but remains a niche product, because yields are lower than those of conventional oil crops. The press cake left after pressing can feed cattle. It is also nutritious for poultry and fancy fowls when they molt. The plant's stems can be turned into energy briquettes and pellets for heating.

  Tasmania, Turkey and India are the major producers of poppy for medicine and for drugs such as morphine and codeine. In 2014, the New York Times reported that Tasmania supplied 85 percent of the world's thebaine and 100 percent of its oripavine. The island also produced 25 percent of the world's opium and codeine.

  Many countries grow the plants, and some rely heavily on commercial drug production as a major source of income. Seeds from the same plants are sold for food, which adds to the profit. On the 28th of July 1998, a United Nations resolution set out to fight the international trade in illicit opium poppy seeds.

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• 8. A Patchwork of Laws

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  Since January 1999, Czech law has required anyone growing poppies in a field larger than 100 square metres to report to the local Customs Office. Extracting opium is prohibited. So is growing varieties with more than 0.8 percent morphine in the dry matter of their capsules, except for research. The name Czech blue poppy refers to the blue seeds used as food. Growing poppies is legal throughout most of Central and Eastern Europe, although Germany requires a licence. The United Kingdom needs no licence to grow the plant, but does require one to extract opium for medicinal products.

  When the European Union tried to ban small-scale cultivation by private individuals, citizens resisted strongly. They lived in countries such as those of the Central-Eastern region, where poppy seed is eaten heavily. The Union changed course.

  The Opium Poppy Control Act of 1942 made it unlawful to produce opium poppies without a licence from the Secretary of the Treasury. The law led to the Poppy Rebellion. The Narcotics Bureau arrested people who planted poppies and forced the destruction of fields belonging to those who defied the ban. The press of the day favoured the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The state of California backed farmers who grew poppies for seeds used in foods such as poppy seed muffins. The act was repealed on the 27th of October 1970.

  Today opium poppy and poppy straw are listed as Schedule II drugs in the United States under ACSN 9630. Possession of a Schedule II drug is a federal and state felony. Yet the plant can be grown legally as a seed crop or an ornamental. The law remains vague and somewhat controversial.

  Canada forbids possessing, seeking or obtaining the opium poppy, its preparations, derivatives, alkaloids and salts, with an exception for poppy seed. In some parts of Australia the plant is illegal to cultivate, but Tasmania is a major producer. New Zealand allows cultivation as long as the plant is not used to make controlled drugs. South Korea strictly prohibits it.

  Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia ban even the possession of poppy seeds. In the Emirates, anyone caught with them faces a long prison sentence. At least one man was imprisoned for possessing seed obtained from a bread roll.

  In northern Myanmar, bans have ended a century-old tradition of growing the opium poppy. Between 20,000 and 30,000 former poppy farmers left the Kokang region after the ban of 2002. People from the Wa region, where a ban took effect in 2005, fled to areas where growing opium is still possible.

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