The opium poppy is a bristly, hairy, annual herb native to Asia Minor. It grows wild in the fields and mountain areas
of southern Europe (Turkey, Macedonia) and in the Middle East. It is cultivated extensively in Turkey for the extraction of opium
for medicinal purposes. The plant has small, slender, spindle-shaped roots; erect, cylindrical, sparsely branched stems; alternate,
obovate, irregularly dentate leaves with an ascendent central rib; large, solitary, white or purple flowers; and ovate, globose capsules
containing numerous, white, kidney-shaped seeds. The parts used are the seeds and capsules. Poppy has a fatty, oily odor and corresponding
taste. The opium prepared from the unripe capsules is a brownish-yellow powder with a faint smell and bitter, acrid taste.
Poppy Seed is a seasoning that is a seed of papaver somniferum l. poppy
seeds have a nutty flavor. they are used in breads, cakes, and butter
sauce for vegetables, lending a nutlike flavor.
The composition of Papaver has been extensively studied. The main constituents of opium include codarnine, codeine,
cryptopine, gnoscopine, lanthopine, laudanidine, laudarnine, laudanosine, meconidine, morphine, narceine, narcotine, neopine,
papaveramine, papaverine, protopine, pseudomorphine, rhoeadine and tebaine. In addition to the above alkaloids, several acids
are also present — meconic, lactic, acetic and phosphoric — together with fats, resin, waxes and magnesium and calcium salts
(Burdock, 1997). More than 30 alkaloids have been isolated from the opium; the important ones include morphine (20%), codeine
(2%), papaverine (2%), noscapine (5%, also called narcotine) and thebaine (1%).* In addition to codeine and morphine, three more compounds, narcotine (noscapine), papaverine and thebaine, were found in Indian and Netherlands poppy seeds (P. somniferum L.).
The concentrations of codeine, morphine, thebaine, papaverine and narcotine were 44, 167, 41, 67, and 230 mg/g in Indian poppy
seeds, and were 1.8, 39, 1.0, 0.17, 0.84 mg/g in Netherland poppy seeds, respectively.*
