64. Meconopsis nipalensis, D.C.

The medicinal plant Meconopsis nipalensis is a member of the Papaveraceae (poppy) family. This page includes its habitat, botanical descption, medicinal uses (eg., Ayurveda), chemical constituents and history of use in modern and ancient India.

Index in Flora of British India (Hooker): 1.118.

Habitat:—Temperate Himalaya, Nepal, and Sikkim.

Botanical description:—A perennial herb, with yellow juice, stellately pubescent and laxly hairy, stem 3-5 ft, stout, erect, nearly simple; young-parts clothed with soft gold villous hairs.

Leaves: sinuate-lobed or pinnatifid.

Flowers: golden yellow, 2-3-½ in. diam., in elongated, nearly simple, racemes.

Sepals: densely tomentose and bristly.

Petals: 4. Ovary 1-celled, style ½ in., persistent.

Stigmatic: lobes, radiating on its clubbed extremity.

Capsule: ovate-oblong, 8-10-valved; clothed with ad pressed hairs and stellate down.

Seeds: small, many, rugose.

According to Hooker, “a more stately and beautiful plant can hardly be imagined, except the Hollyhock, which it somewhat resembles in miniature.”

Part used:—The root.

Medicinal uses:—The root is regarded as a narcotic in Kashmir.