Argemone albiflora

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Argemone albiflora
Argemone albiflora Zilker Park.jpg
White prickly poppy
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Ranunculales
Family: Papaveraceae
Genus: Argemone
Species:
A. albiflora
Binomial name
Argemone albiflora

Argemone albiflora, the white prickly poppy, also known as the bluestem prickly poppy or the Texas prickly poppy, [1] is a small erect plant with a decorative white flower with a yellow latex. It is deeply rooted with yellow or red stamens. The plant is known for the sharp prickles on its stem and leaves. The sepals fall off as the flower of this plant grows bigger. It grows in the arid regions of the southern Midwest along roadsides and disturbed pieces of land. Native Americans have long revered this plant for its medicinal and other uses.

Contents

Distribution

Argemone albiflora can be found in the area ranging from east Texas to northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. Native to areas of Southern California's High Desert such as Twentynine Palms.

Habitat and ecology

White prickly poppy is an annual or biennial plant that often grows in colonies in sandy or gravelly soils. This plant is often found along fences, roadsides, railroad tracks, on hills and slopes, and in overgrazed pastures. [2]

Morphology

Individuals of this species are erect, prickly deep-rooted plants with a white flower that contains many yellow and red stamens. The flowers grow solitarily or in loose cymes at the top of the plant. It contains grayish-green, long (2 to 10 inches) lanceolate to ovate leaves. [3] The lower leaves are lobed to the midrib while the upper leaves are more shallow. The upper surface of the leaf is smooth although it has a few prickles along the midrib while the lower surface of the leaf is spiny along the midrib and main vein. [4]

Flowers and fruit

Flowers of Argemone albiflora contain 3 long sepals and 6 petals and is ovate to almost circular with a rugged outer margin. The ovary is single chambered and contains many ovules with 3 to 5 lobed purple stigma. The fruit of this plant is a spiny capsule opening by the terminal splits. The seeds are brownish black. [5]

Chemical

Usage

The oil of the white prickly poppy was used as a fine lubricant during WWII. It was found that the oil content of the seed is 25.8% which is similar to the oil content found in soybeans. The white prickly poppy is also used for decorative and ornamental purposes.

Food

This plant is usually avoided by cattle and many other animals that roam the southern Midwest area as it is very prickly and has limited nutritional value. The seeds are the most nutritional part of the plant. Quails and doves consume these seeds for its high oil content. Each flower produces an abundance of seeds making it a reliable food source.

Medicinal

The white prickly poppy exudes a yellow latex that Native Americans use for many different ailments. Aztec priests would use the plant in sacrificial rituals. The Comanches held the plant in such high regard that they would make offerings to it during harvesting. They would take the latex and use it to remove warts, treat cold sores and other skin problems. A concoction could also be made from the flower to treat congestion from the cold or the flu. [6] The seeds can also be used as an emetic to induce vomiting or as a laxative or even as a mild sedative. The entire plant can also be used to treat bladder infection, prostate pain, or to help the throbbing pain of a migraine. A wash made from the tea can also be used to help heal sunburns or scraped skin. The plant is also smoked during some important ceremonies to induce a euphoric and mild sedating effect. However, if not used properly, the plant can be very toxic. [7]

Related Research Articles

<i>Eschscholzia</i> Genus of flowering plants in the poppy family Papaveracae

Eschscholzia is a genus of 12 annual or perennial plants in the Papaveraceae (poppy) family. The genus was named after the Baltic German/Imperial Russian botanist Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz (1793–1831). All species are native to Mexico or the southern United States.

<i>Papaver</i> Genus of flowering plants in the poppy family Papaveraceae

Papaver is a genus of 70–100 species of frost-tolerant annuals, biennials, and perennials native to temperate and cold regions of Eurasia, Africa and North America. It is the type genus of the poppy family, Papaveraceae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papaveraceae</span> Family of flowering plants

The Papaveraceae, informally known as the poppy family, are an economically important family of about 42 genera and approximately 775 known species of flowering plants in the order Ranunculales. The family is cosmopolitan, occurring in temperate and subtropical climates like Eastern Asia as well as California in North America. It is almost unknown in the tropics. Most are herbaceous plants, but a few are shrubs and small trees. The family currently includes two groups that have been considered to be separate families: Fumariaceae and Pteridophyllaceae. Papaver is the classical name for poppy in Latin.

<i>Aralia spinosa</i> Species of tree

Aralia spinosa, commonly known as devil's walking stick, is a woody species of plant in the genus Aralia of the family Araliaceae. It is native to eastern North America. The various names refer to the viciously sharp, spiny stems, petioles and even leaf midribs. It has also been known as Angelica-tree.

<i>Scolymus maculatus</i> Species of flowering plant

Scolymus maculatus is a spiny annual plant in the family Asteraceae, native to the Mediterranean region in southern Europe, southwest Asia, and northern Africa, and also the Canary Islands. It has pinnately incised prickly leaves and prickly wings along the stems, both with a white marginal vein. The yellow flowerheads stand solitary or with a few together at the tip to the stems, and subtended by more than five leaflike bracts. The plant is known as scolyme taché in French, cardogna macchiata in Italian, cardo borriquero in Spanish, and escólimo-malhado in Portuguese, חוח עקוד in Hebrew and سنارية حولية in Arabic. In English it is called spotted golden thistle or spotted oyster thistle.

<i>Mimosa nuttallii</i> Species of plant

Mimosa nuttallii, the Nuttall's sensitive-briar, catclaw brier, or sensitive brier, is an herbaceous perennial legume in the subfamily Mimosoideae native to the central United States. It has a trailing semi-woody vine covered with small recurved prickles that can be painful to bare skin.

<i>Argemone mexicana</i> Species of plant

Argemone mexicana, also known by the common names Mexican poppy, Mexican prickly poppy, flowering thistle, cardo, and cardosanto, is a species of poppy found in Mexico and now widely naturalized in many parts of the world. An extremely hardy pioneer plant, it is tolerant of drought and poor soil, often being the only cover on new road cuttings or verges. It has bright yellow latex. It is poisonous to grazing animals, and it is rarely eaten, but it has been used medicinally by many peoples, including those in its native area, as well as the indigenous peoples of the western United States, parts of Mexico, and many parts of India. In India, during the colorful festival Holika Dahan, adults and children worship by offering flowers, and this species is in its maximum flowering phase during March when the Holi festival is celebrated. It is also referred to as "kateli ka phool" in India.

<i>Stylophorum diphyllum</i> Species of flowering plant in poppy family

Stylophorum diphyllum, commonly called the celandine poppy or wood poppy, is an herbaceous plant in the poppy family (Papaveraceae). It is native to North America, where it is found in the eastern United States and Ontario. Its typical natural habitat is moist forests over calcareous rock, particularly in ravines.

<i>Argemone corymbosa</i> Species of flowering plant

Argemone corymbosa, the Mojave prickly poppy, is a flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae native to the eastern Mojave Desert of the southwestern United States. It especially common around Cima, California and the nearby community of Kelso, California. The plant grows in sandy places and on dry slopes, and is very similar to desert prickly poppy.

<i>Codiaeum variegatum</i> Species of plant

Codiaeum variegatum is a species of Codiaeum, a genus of flowering plants, in the Euphorbiaceae. Initially described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, it is native to Australasia and Oceania, from Malaysia and Indonesia in the north through northeastern Australia, as well as many Southeast Asian and South Pacific islands, growing in open forests and scrub.

<i>Roemeria argemone</i> Species of flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae

Roemeria argemone is a species of flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae. Its common names include long pricklyhead poppy, prickly poppy and pale poppy. Its native range includes parts of Eurasia and North Africa, but it can be found growing wild in parts of North America, where it is an introduced species. It is cultivated as an ornamental plant.

<i>Argemone munita</i> Species of flowering plant

Argemone munita is a species of prickly poppy known by the common names flatbud prickly poppy and chicalote. "Munita" means "armed", in reference to the many long prickles. This flower is native to California, where it is widespread throughout the western part of the state and its eastern deserts, on slopes to 10,000 feet, and along roadsides. Its range also extends into Baja California, Arizona, and Nevada.

<i>Fumaria muralis</i> Species of plant in the poppy family

Fumaria muralis, known as common ramping-fumitory or wall fumitory, is a flowering herbaceous plant in the poppy family (Papaveraceae) native to western Europe and northwestern Africa.

<i>Capparis arborea</i> Species of tree

Capparis arborea is a bush or small tree occurring in eastern Australia. Its habitat is rainforest, usually riverine, littoral or the drier rainforests. It is distributed from the Hunter River, New South Wales to Cape Melville in tropical Queensland. Common names include native pomegranate, wild lime, wild lemon and brush caper berry.

<i>Argemone pleiacantha</i> Species of flowering plant

Argemone pleiacantha is a species of flowering plant in the poppy family known by the common name southwestern prickly poppy. It is native to Arizona and New Mexico in the United States and Chihuahua, and Sonora in Mexico, where it occurs in dry woodlands and slopes of foothills and mountains. It is an annual or perennial herb with branching, erect stems up to 1.5 meters tall. The plant is covered in prickles, often densely. The blue-green leaves are divided into sharp, toothlike lobes. The flower buds are up to 2 centimeters long and covered in prickles. They bloom into showy white-petalled flowers which may be up to 16 centimeters wide. The fruit is a capsule up to 4.5 centimeters long which is covered in prickles.

<i>Meconopsis horridula</i> Species of flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae

Meconopsis horridula, the prickly blue poppy, is a flowering plant from the family Papaveraceae. It is an endangered species that grows in high altitudes. The height of the plant varies from 20 cm to 1m. It is a monocarpic, dicot plant.

Argemone pinnatisecta, known as the Sacramento prickly poppy, is an angiosperm and part of the poppy family. A very thorny looking perennial that grows up to a meter and a half in height. The thorny stems are covered in bluish green serrated leaves with spiky tips. The flower buds are also covered in these sharp thin thorns until they open, between May and August, revealing six white petals up to four centimeters long and nine centimeters wide, and a bright yellow anther with various stamens jetting out. The fruits of plant contain black seeds about two millimeters in diameter.

<i>Argemone polyanthemos</i> Species of flowering plant

Argemone polyanthemos, the crested pricklypoppy, also known as bluestem prickly poppy, pricklypoppy, white prickly poppy, annual pricklypoppy, or as thistle poppy is an annual plant with yellow sap and showy white flowers in the poppy family (Papaveraceae).

<i>Solanum pachyandrum</i> Species of flowering plant

Solanum pachyandrum, known as bombona, is a spine-forming vine of the Solanum genus. It is native to southwestern Ecuador and northwestern Peru where the large juicy fruit is commonly eaten and considered a treat by children. Although the plant has been known and consumed by the indigenous people of that land, it was only published scientifically in 1914 by German botanist Friedrich August Georg Bitter.

Zanthoxylum yuanjiangensis is a woody plant in the Rutaceae. It is native to Yuanjiang, Yunnan, China.

References

  1. "Plant Fact Sheet_White Prickly Poppy_USDA NRCS".
  2. Irwin, H. (1961). “Roadside Flowers of Texas”, p.117-118.
  3. Richardson, A. (2002). “Wildflowers and Other Plants of Texas Beaches and Islands”, p. 67.
  4. "Prickly Poppy_Argemone albiflora_Papaveraceae (Poppy) Family". Archived from the original on 2006-09-07.
  5. Moldenke, H. (1949). “American Wild Flowers”, p. 28.
  6. "White prickly poppy_Native Plant Society of Texas".accessdate August 3rd, 2024
  7. "UF/IFAS Mid-Florida Research & Education Center: Argemone albiflora".