20. Aconitum deinorrhizum, Stapf. sp. nov.

The medicinal plant Aconitum deinorrhizum 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.

Fig:—Stapf. Annals Roy. Bot. Gard. Calcutta, Vol. X, pt. ii, t 103.

Habitat:—Alpine Himalaya of Bashahr.

Vernacular name:—mohra, maura bikh.

Botanical description:—Roots: Biennial, tuberous, paired; daughter-tuber conical, rather elongated, up to 6.5 cm. long, and at the upper end up to 18 mm. thick, with very few filiform root-fibres, brown externally, fracture scarcely farinaceous, whitish, taste indifferent, followed by a strong tingling sensation, cambium discontinuous, broken into strands, arranged in a ring, the smaller circular in cross-section, the larger tangentially flattened; mother-tuber similar, more or less shrunk, wrinkled, with long filiform root-fibres.

Innovation-bud: a very low, broad, obtuse cone; scales very broad with a clasping base, decaying after sprouting.

Stem: several feet high, erect, straight, simple, terete, sparingly and finely crispo-pubescent in the upper part, otherwise glabrous, shining, or in young plants sparingly pubescent all along.

Leaves: up to 10 or 12, scattered, lower usually decayed at the time of flowering, the upper 6-8 rather distant, sparingly hairy when young, especially towards the margins and on the nerves below, soon glabrescent; petioles slender, mostly 5-7 cm. long, dilated at the base; blade reniform or ovate-reniform in outline, with a very wide sinus or an almost truncate base, 5-pedati-partite almost to the base (to 15/16-19/20 in the inner, to ¾-⅞ in the outer, incisions), inner divisions subequal or intermediate, distinctly longer, rhombic from a cuneate base, up to 8 cm. (or the intermediate to 10 cm. long), 5-6.5 cm. broad, 3-lobed to the middle, intermediate lobe much longer than the lateral, lobes deeply laciniate, laciniae linear or broad-lanceolate, entire or sparingly inciso-dentate, shortly acute or subobtuse, outer divisions asymmetric, usually to or beyond the middle, otherwise similar to the inner, but smaller.

Inflorescence: straight, racemose, simple or sometimes with an additional branchlet from near its base, 30-40 cm. long, narrow, not very dense, greyish, crispo-pubescent; lowest bracts similar to the preceding leaves, or like the rest much reduced, coarsely and sparingly dentate, the uppermost very small; pedicels erect, slender, lower up to 6.5 cm. long, upper much shorter; bracteoles linear, up to 4 mm. long, or on the lower pedicels broader and sparingly dentate.

Sepals: blue, crispo-puberulous; uppermost helmet-shaped, helmet more or less oblique, depressed, 15-20 mm. high, 17-22 mm. from the tip to the base, about 7 mm. wide (in profile), slightly concave towards the base in front and produced into a short beak and broadly clawed; lateral oblique, sub-orbicular, scarcely unguiculate, ciliate, 14-18 mm. long; lower oblong, 10 mm. long, obtuse, deflexed.

Nectaries: hispidulous all over; claw almost straight, 12-13 mm. long; hood leaning forward, gibbous near the top on the back, 5 mm. long, lip short, broad, emarginate, reflexed.

Filaments: hairy in the upper part, 8-10 mm. long, winged beyond the middle, wings abruptly contracted.

Carpels: 3, oblong, conniving in the flower, then sub-divaricate, ad-pressedly greyish-pubescent, contracted into the rather long style.

Follicles: unknown.

Seeds: obconic, 3 mm. long, terete with numerous small, short transverse lamellae.

Medicinal properties and uses:—Watt quotes in Agric. Ledg., G. G. Minniken as saying that in Bashahr the poisonous aconites are collectively called Mohra. The poisonous principle of this aconite is pseudo-aconite.