Family | Papaveraceae

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Poppy GARDENING 

A poppy is a flowering plant in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. Poppies are herbaceous plants, often grown for their colourful flowers. One species of poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the source of the narcotic drug opium which contains powerful medicinal alkaloids such as morphine and has been used since ancient times as an analgesic and narcotic medicinal drug. It also produces edible seeds. Following the trench warfare in the poppy fields of Flanders, Belgium during World War I, poppies have become a symbol of remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime.

 

Corn poppy (Papaver  Rhoeas)

Corn poppy (Papaver  Rhoeas)

Poppy seeds carefully sown during the winter reward this gardener with pink and red taffeta like petals. The directions stated, "place the seeds directly onto the soil," as they require exposure to the sun for germination.

Papaver somniferum

Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé 

Flora von Deutschland

Österreich und der Schweiz 1885

Gera, Germany

The poppies in India and opium

Early 1600 Portuguese (first arrived in India1489)and Dutch found opium for pain in India. 

Physician-Botanist Garcia De Orta

arcia de Orta (or Garcia d'Orta; 1501–1568) was a Portuguese physician, herbalist, and naturalist, who worked primarily in Goa and Bombay in Portuguese India.

A pioneer of tropical medicine, pharmacognosy, and ethnobotany, Garcia used an experimental approach to the identification and the use of herbal medicines, rather than the older approach of received knowledge.

His most famous work is Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India, a book on simples (herbs used individually and not mixed with others) and drugs. Published in 1563, it is the earliest treatise on the medicinal and economic plants of India. Carolus Clusius translated it into Latin, which was widely used as a standard reference text on medicinal plants.

Although Garcia de Orta did not suffer the Goa Inquisition, his sister Catarina was burnt at the stake in 1569 for being a secret Jew and, based on her confession, his remains were later exhumed and burnt, along with an effigy, at an auto-da-fé.

Memorials recognizing his contributions have been built in both Portugal and India.

Title page of Colóquios (1563)

Garcia de Orta was born in Castelo de Vide, probably in 1501, the son of Fernão (Isaac) da Orta, a merchant, and Leonor Gomes. He had three sisters, Violante, Catarina and Isabel. Their parents were Spanish Jews from Valencia de Alcántara who had taken refuge, as many others did, in Portugal at the time of the great expulsion of the Spanish Jews by the Reyes Catolicos Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain in 1492. Forcibly converted to Christianity in 1497, they were pejoratively classed as Cristãos Novos (New Christians) and marranos ("swine"). Some of these refugees maintained their Jewish faith secretly.[1] A friendly neighbor at Castelo de Vide was the nobleman Dom Fernão de Sousa, Lord of Labruja, who may have influenced the idea for Garcia's father to send him to University. Dom Fernão's son Martim Afonso de Sousa would become a key figure in later life.

Garcia studied medicine, arts and philosophy at the Universities of Alcalá de Henares and Salamanca in Spain. He graduated and returned to Portugal in 1525, two years after his father's death. He practiced medicine first in his hometown and from 1526 onwards in Lisbon, where he gained a lectureship at the university in 1532.[4] He also became a royal physician to John III of Portugal.

Perhaps fearing the increasing power of the Portuguese Inquisition, and fortunately evading the ban on emigration of New Christians, he sailed for Portuguese India leaving the Tagus in March 1534 as Chief Physician aboard the fleet of Martim Afonso de Sousa, later to be named Governor. He reached Goa in September. He travelled with Sousa on various campaigns, then, in 1538, settled at Goa, where he soon had a prominent medical practice. He was a physician to Burhan Nizam Shah I of the Nizam Shahi dynasty of Ahmadnagar, and concurrently to several successive Portuguese Viceroys and governors of Goa. While Garcia de Orta was a physician of the Sultan and teacher of Portuguese of his son, the Prince, he met and dined several times with the high ranking cavalry general of the Sultan, Firangi Khan. Garcia de Orta reports that the cavalry commander sometimes violated religious directives, eating pork and drinking wine in these private dinners. Firangi Khan had converted to Islam for apparently material reasons and had a very important role in the court of the Sultanate, but subsidized charities to Misericórdias in the relationship he had with the Portuguese empire (despite serving an intermittent enemy Muslim state) and, according to Orta, "urged other Christians to never abdicate their principles." He even projected return to his home city in his country (already secretly pardoned by the viceroy Afonso de Noronha). Firangi Khan was not his title (and name, which literally means "foreigner Khan") of origin. His name was Sancho Pires, a former gunner (bombardeiro), Portuguese, and natural of Matosinhos. He died in battle in India.[6][7]

The King of Portugal through the Viceroy Dom Pedro Mascarenhas granted a lifelong lease (on payment of a quit-rent) to Garcia da Orta for the Ilha da Boa Vida ("the Island of the Good Life") which became a part of Bombay.[8] This was probably somewhere between September 1554 and June 1555. The only condition of the lease was that he had to improve the place. He had a manor house with a large garden. He probably maintained an excellent library here. This manor stood not far from where the Town Hall of Bombay was built. Garcia probably let out the house to Simao Toscano. At the time of Bombay's transfer to the English, the manor was occupied by Dona Ignez de Miranda, widow of Dom Rodrigo de Monsanto. It was in this house that the treaty by which Bombay was transferred to the English was signed by Humphrey Cooke on February 18, 1665. Garcia describes the people around Bassein and their traditions in his book.

Painting by Veloso Salgado (1905) depicting Garcia de Orta and other physicians including Amatus Lusitanus, Sousa Martins, and Câmara Pestana.

Contrary to some early biographical accounts, Garcia de Orta married a wealthy cousin, Brianda de Solis, in 1543; the marriage was unhappy, but the couple had two daughters. In 1549, his mother and two of his sisters, who had been imprisoned as Jews in Lisbon, managed to join him in Goa. According to a confession by his brother-in-law after his death, Garcia de Orta privately continued to assert that "the Law of Moses was the true law"; in other words, he, probably in common with others in his family, remained a Jewish believer. In 1565, an inquisitorial court was opened in Goa. Active persecution against Jews, secret Jews, Hindus and New Christians began. Garcia himself died in 1568, apparently without having suffered seriously from this persecution, but his sister Catarina was arrested as a Jew in the same year and was burned at the stake for Judaism in Goa on October 25, 1569. Garcia himself was posthumously convicted of Judaism. His remains were exhumed and burned along with an effigy in an auto da fé on December 4, 1580.[14] A compilation of the auto-da-fé statistics of the Goa Inquisition from 1560 to 1812 reveal that a total of 57 persons (crypto-Jews, crypto-Muslims, etc.) were burnt in the flesh and 64 in effigy (i.e. a statue resembling the person).[15] The fate of his daughters is not known.[16] During his lifetime, Orta's family members, including his mother and sisters were arrested and interrogated briefly in Portugal but they were probably protected by his friend and patron, Martim Afonso de Sousa, who was Governor-General of Portuguese India from 1542 to 1545.[ Opium through alter- native routes passing through Portuguese Daman, Diu and Goa, or even Karachi before the conquest. Then the British began exporting it to China to offset the economic tea deficit.

The first Opium War 1839-1844.

Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC, FRS (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman and politician who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period 1830 to 1865, when Britain stood at the height of its imperial power. He held office almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865. He began his parliamentary career as a Tory, defected to the Whigs in 1830, and became the first prime minister from the newly formed Liberal Party in 1859. He was highly popular with the British public. David Brown argues that "an important part of Palmerston's appeal lay in his dynamism and vigour".

Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Pottinger, 1st Baronet, GCB, PC (Chinese: 砵甸乍, 璞鼎查; 3 October 1789 – 18 March 1856) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and colonial administrator who became the Henry Pottinger was born at his family estate of Mount Pottinger in Ballymacarrett, County Down, Ireland, on 3 October 1789. He descended from the Pottingers of Berkshire, an old English family with a branch that settled in Ireland in the 17th century. He was the fifth son of Eldred Curwen Pottinger and his wife Anne. They had three daughters and eight sons.[1][2][3] His nephew was also named Eldred Pottinger.[4] Henry attended the Belfast Academy until the age of 12. In 1803, he left for India to join the East India Company's maritime service, but in the following year joined the Company's military service as a cadet instead.[5] He studied local languages in Bombay and became an assistant teacher. On 18 September 1806, he was made an ensign and promoted to lieutenant on 16 July 1809.

India

©  2021 Hyden Photography for

Grassroots Horticulture

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Pottinger's map of Balochistan and Sindh, showing his travel routes

Pottinger explored the lands between the Indus and Persia, traveling in disguise as a Muslim merchant and studying local languages, under the orders of Sir John Malcolm. In 1809, he served as a lieutenant in the Third Anglo-Maratha War. In 1810, he and Charles Christie undertook an expedition from Nushki (Balochistan) to Isfahan (Central Persia) disguised as Muslims.[7] Christie went north to Herat and then west while Pottinger went west across two deserts to Kerman and Isfahan where they rejoined. The expedition was funded by the East India Company to map and research the regions of Balochistan and Persia because of concerns about India being invaded by French forces.[8] It would be 100 years before another European took this route, and Pottinger rose to the rank of Colonel. Pottinger later became Resident Administrator of Sindh in 1820. He later held the same post in Hyderabad.

He was made a baronet when he returned to England in 1839.

China

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Portrait by Samuel Laurence, 1840

Pottinger accepted Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston's offer of the post of envoy and plenipotentiary in China and superintendent of British trade, thus replacing Charles Elliot.[6] In 1841, Palmerston instructed him to "examine with care the natural capacities of Hong Kong, and you will not agree to give up that Island unless you should find that you can exchange it for another in the neighbourhood of Canton, better adapted for the purposes in view; equally defensible; and affording sufficient shelter for Ships of War and Commerce".[9]

Pottinger left London on 5 June, travelled by ship through the Mediterranean, over land across the Suez, and reached Bombay on 7 July, where he stayed for 10 days before arriving in China on 10 August. The whole trip took 67 days, a record at the time.[10] On 4 November, Palmerston's successor Lord Aberdeen wrote to Pottinger that he had doubts over Hong Kong's acquisition since it would incur administrative expenses, and complicate relations with China and other nations.[9]

After Pottinger joined the British expeditionary force in northern China, he negotiated the terms of the Treaty of Nanking (1842), which ended the First Opium War and ceded Hong Kong Island to the United Kingdom. Pottinger wrote in a letter to Aberdeen that at a feast celebrating the ratification with his Hong Kong counterpart, Keying, Keying insisted they ceremonially exchange miniature portraits of each member of each others' families. Upon receiving a miniature portrait of Pottinger's wife, Pottinger wrote that Keying "placed it on his head—which I am told is the highest token of respect and friendship—filled a glass of wine, held the picture in front of his face, muttered some words in a low voice, drank the wine, again placed the picture on his head and then sat down" to complete the ceremony of long-term amity between the two families and the two peoples.[11]

Governor of Hong Kong

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Pottinger's residence in Victoria, Hong Kong, 1845

Pottinger became the second Administrator of Hong Kong (1841–1843) and the first Governor of Hong Kong (1843–1844). When he forwarded the treaty to Aberdeen, Pottinger remarked, "the retention of Hong Kong is the only point in which I have intentionally exceeded my modified instructions, but every