19. Aconitum rotundifolium, Ver. and Kir.

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

Synonyms:—Aconitum napellus, var. multifidum, Duthie. Aconitum napellus, var. rotundifolium. Hk. f. and Th.

Habitat:—Alpine zone of Turkistan to the North-Western Himalaya, and the Safed Koh of Indo-Afghan frontier.

Botanical description:—Roots: Biennial, paired, tuberous; daughter-tuber short, or long, conic or subcylindric, 1—2.5 cm. long, 6-8 mm. thick, bearing long fine root—fibres breaking off easily; bark very thin, whitish to brown, smooth, fracture pure white, farinaceous; taste slightly bitter, almost indifferent; cambium discontinuous, forming 4-5 isolated, very slender cylindric strands arranged in a ring; mother-tuber more or less shrunk, wrinkled, dark brown to almost black, brownish internally.

Stem: erect or ascending from a short (1.5 cm.) hypogaeous base, simple, 15-40 cm. high, terete, slender, crispo-pubescent in upper part, glabrous below.

Leaves: mostly basal, 4-5 rarely 8, gathered in a loose rosette above the hypogaeous part of the stem, coëtanous with the flowers, somewhat fleshy, glabrous or scantily pubescent on long (4-13 cm.) petioles which are dilated and more or less sheathing at the base; 1-2 or rarely more, higher up on the stem or very short petioles; lower blade, orbicular-cordate or almost reniform in outline, with a narrow sinus (0 7-2 cm. deep), 1-3.5 cm. high from the sinus to the tip. 2-6 cm. across, 5-7-palmati-partite to ⅘-⅞ in the inner, to ⅔ or less in the outer incisions, divisions broadly ovate-cuneate, 3- or (the outermost) 2-lobed to or beyond the middle, lobes narrow, sparingly crenate or inciso-crenate, crenae subobtuse, calloso-apiculate; cauline blades similar to the lower, but smaller, less divided, with narrower and longer lobes and more pubescent.

Inflorescence: a short (up to 8-9 cm.), few-flowered, usually loose raceme, or with a few slender, few-flowered, additional branches from the uppermost of the much reduced leaves, crispo-pubescent to tomentose; lowest bracts 5-3-partite, very narrow divisions, or like the upper entire, linear, as long as or longer than the pedicels, uppermost much reduced or suppressed; ‘bracteoles, if present, minute; pedicels slender, lowest up to 2 cm. long, upper much shorter, erect in the mature state, more or less adpressed to the rhachis.

Sepals: pale or purplish blue or white or variegated, with saturated veins, more or less pubescent, overlapping at the base only in the fully open flowers; uppermost navicular, more or less beaked, obliquely erect, 12-20 mm. high, 15-25 mm. long (from the beak to the base), 4-7 mm. broad, obliquely clawed; lateral sepals oblique, broadly obovate or suborbicular, about 15 mm. long, 10-13 mm. broad; not or obscurely clawed, lower sepals deflexed, elliptic-oblong, or elliptic-obtuse, about 8 mm. long.

Nectaries: glabrous, extinguisher-shaped; claw very slender, 12-15 mm. long, leaning forward in the upper part, hood horizontal, or more or less deflexed, saccate, very obscure, top often widened and gibbous in front, lip 2-lobed, lobes often narrow and rather long.

Filaments: glabrous, very rarely with a few minute hairs, winged to the middle, wings gradually alternated or running into minute teeth.

Carpels: usually 5 (4 or 6), contiguous, oblong, abruptly contracted into the style, softly villous.

Follicles: contiguous or almost so, oblong, truncate at the top, 9-13 mm. long, softly hairy.

Seeds: brown, obpyramidal, 3-angled, obliquely truncate at the top, 2.5-3 mm. long, angles unequally winged, wings hollow, faces smooth.

General Properties:—On the authority of Col. Monro, the roots of the Alpine form, it appears, are eaten by the hillmen of Kanawar as a pleasant tunic, under the name of Atees (Stapf).