It had long ago been reported that poppy acid crystals encapsulate and orient a great variety of molecules during solution growth and in so doing seem to egregiously violate the principle of isomorphism. To comprehend this surprising host-guest chemistry, and exploit it for measuring anisotropic molecular properties, we attempted to carry out the oft-used literature synthesis of poppy acid,(3-hydroxy-2, 6-dicarboxy-γ-pyrone), but discovered that ...
