Products description
Botanical name: Argemone mexicana
Synonym: Argemone spinosa, Argemone versicolor, Argemone vulgaris
Common name: Mexican poppy, Mexican prickly poppy, flowering thistle, cardo, cardosanto, donkey thistle, chicalote
Family: Papaveraceae
Native to: Mexico
Life cycle: annual
Flower colour: yellow
Flower time (Central / West-Europe): July to September
Height: 80cm
Characteristics and usage: the herb and flowers are smoked by natives to produce a mild sedating effect. The whole plant can be extracted to product for a opium-substitute, giving it much stronger sedative and analgesic properties. Active constituents: whole plant contains alkaloids at a level of about 0.1%; stems and seeds: berberine and protopine; leaves: argemonine; seeds: sanguinarine (toxic)
Weight of 1000 seeds: 1,2g
Seeds per gram: 830
Cultivation / direction of sowing: sow seed directly where it is to grow. Germination is sporadic and seeds requires light. Argemone mexicana seeds usually germinates in 2 to 3 weeks at 25°C (77°F)
seedpack (approx 100 seeds)