22. Aconitum falconeri, Stapf., sp. nov.

The medicinal plant Aconitum falconeri 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.

Vernacular names:—Bis, Bikh, Meetha-tellia, (Royle) in an incomplete manuscript catalogue (of Himalayan plants) at Kew.

Habitat:—Subalpine and Alpine Zone of the Himalaya of Garhwal.

Botanical description:—Roots: biennial, paired, tuberous, daughter-tuber conic to cylindric from a broad, truncate base, up to 8 cm. long, to 2 cm. thick, entire or divided, bearing more or less numerous filiform fibrous root-fibres, externally brown, fracture white, slightly farinaceous or horny, taste somewhat bitter, followed by a strong burning and tingling sensation, cambium continuous, forming in transverse section a slightly sinuous ring; mother-tuber similar, much shrunk and wrinkled.

Innovation-bud: very short and broad, conic, bud-scales very short, broad and clasping, soon decaying after sprouting.

Stem: erect, simple, up to 1 m. high, moderately stout, finely pubescent or sub-glabrous in the upper part, quite glabrous below.

Leaves: scattered, 10 or more, if many, the upper sometimes rather crowded, the intermediate usually very distant, the lowest decayed at the time of flowering; petioles slender, lowest up to 12cm. long, upper much shorter, uppermost very short; blades rather thin, very sparingly and finely pubescent or glabrous, with the exception of the nerves at the base below, lower and intermediate rotundate-cordate to reniform in outline, with a very wide and open sinus, 1-3 cm. deep, 6-10 cm. high, from the sinus to the tip, 12-15 cm, across, 5—sub-pedati-partite to 6/7 or more in the inner, to ¾ or more in the outer incisions, inner divisions rhomboid-cuneate, 3-lobed to the middle, with the inner lobe elongated and pinnati-laciniate, outer divisions much smaller, trapezoid, 2-lobed, all the lobes and laciniae broadly ineiso-dentate, teeth usually triangular, upper blades very similar, but smaller and less deeply divided or 3-partite, with intermediate division much longer than lateral.

In florescence: an erect stiff, usually dense raceme, about 15-20 cm. long, rarely lax and with slender few-flowered ascending additional branches from below, finely adpressedly pubescent or rarely with short spreading hairs; axis rather slender, lowest bracts 3-partite, upper ovate to deltoid, all acutely and coarsely dentate; bracteoles usually present, resembling the upper bracts, but much smaller; pedicels slender, erect, often almost adpressed to the axis, lowest up to 4 cm. long, the upper much shorter.

Sepals: blue, with very dark tips (in the dry state), pubescent; uppermost helmet-shaped, helmet obliquely semi-orbicular in profile, very shortly beaked, 16-22 mm. high, 18-22 mm. long, from the tip to the base, 8-9 mm. wide; lateral sepals oblique, suborbicular or ovate-orbicular, 14-18 mm. long, lower sepals oblong-elliptic, obtuse 8-10 mm. long.

Nectaries: extinguisher-shaped, claw erect, 13-15 mm. long, minutely hispid, hood leaning forwards or almost horizontal, slightly constricted or obscurely gibbous on the back, close to the top, lip spathulate, broad, crenulate.

Carpels: 5, obliquely oblong, conniving in the flower, soon slightly divergent, gradually passing into rather long style, quite glabrous and black when dry, or sometimes more or less very minutely silky-pubescent.

Follicles: erect and contiguous or slightly diverging upwards, oblong rounded at the top, 14-18 mm. long, 4-5 mm. broad, glabrous, faintly reticulate.

Seeds: brown, obconic, 3-4 mm. long, winged (often broadly) along the rhaphe, with undulate, hyaline, rather wide and distant transverse lamellae.

Variety:—Latilobium, Stapf.

Botanical description:—Roots: up to 12 cm. long, and 2.5 cm. thick, with few fibres.

Upper leaf-blades: 3-partite to ⅚; up to 6.5 cm. high, 10 cm. across, divisions broadly deltoid or the outer trapezoid up to 4.5 cm. broad, shortly 3-or (the outer) 2-lobed, lobes coarsely crenate or dentate. Inflorescence tomentose, with spreading hairs.

Carpels: quite glabrous.

Medicinal properties and uses:—Evidently poisonous.