Aconitum

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Wolf's bane" redirects here. For other uses, see Wolfsbane (disambiguation).

Aconitum
Aconitum variegatum
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Ranunculales
Family: Ranunculaceae
Subfamily: Ranunculoideae
Tribe: Delphinieae
Genus: Aconitum
L.
Subgenera[1]
  • Aconitum subgenus Aconitum
  • Aconitum subgenus Lycoctonum (DC.) Peterm.

for species see below

Aconitum (

native to the mountainous parts of the Northern Hemisphere in North America, Europe, and Asia,[4] growing in the moisture-retentive but well-draining soils
of mountain meadows.

Most Aconitum species are extremely poisonous and must be handled very carefully.[3][5] Several Aconitum hybrids, such as the Arendsii form of Aconitum carmichaelii, have won gardening awards—such as the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.[6] Some are used by florists.[7]

Etymology

Northern blue monkshood (A. noveboracense)

The name aconitum comes from the Greek word ἀκόνιτον, which may derive from the Greek akon for dart or javelin, the tips of which were poisoned with the substance, or from akonae, because of the rocky ground on which the plant was thought to grow.[8] The Greek name lycoctonum, which translates literally to "wolf's bane", is thought to indicate the use of its juice to poison arrows or baits used to kill wolves.[9] The English name monkshood refers to the cylindrical helmet, called the galea, distinguishing the flower.[4]

Description

The dark green leaves of Aconitum species lack

palmate or deeply palmately lobed with five to seven segments. Each segment again is trilobed with coarse sharp teeth. The leaves have a spiral (alternate) arrangement. The lower leaves have long petioles
.

nectaries

The tall, erect stem is crowned by

carpels
are partially fused at the base.

The fruit is an aggregate of follicles, a follicle being a dry, many-seeded structure.

Unlike with many species from genera (and their hybrids) in Ranunculaceae (and the related Papaveroideae subfamily), there are no double-flowered forms.

Color range

A medium to dark semi-saturated blue-purple is the typical flower color for Aconitum species. Aconitum species tend to be variable enough in form and color in the wild to cause debate and confusion among experts when it comes to species classification boundaries. The overall color range of the genus is rather limited, although the palette has been extended a small amount with hybridization. In the wild, some Aconitum blue-purple shades can be very dark. In cultivation the shades do not reach this level of depth.

Aside from blue-purple—white, very pale greenish-white, creamy white, and pale greenish-yellow are also somewhat common in nature. Wine red (or red-purple) occurs in a hybrid of the climber Aconitum hemsleyanum. There is a pale semi-saturated pink produced by cultivation as well as bicolor hybrids (e.g. white centers with blue-purple edges). Purplish shades range from very dark blue-purple to a very pale lavender that is quite greyish. The latter occurs in the "Stainless Steel" hybrid.

Neutral blue (rather than purplish or greenish), greenish-blue, and intense blues, available in some related

hummingbirds
. There are no orange-flowered varieties nor any that are green. Aconitum is typically more intense in color than Helleborus but less intense than Delphinium. There are no blackish flowers in Aconitum, unlike with Helleborus.

Monkshood (Aconitum napellus) produces light indigo-blue flowers,[10] while Wolf's Bane (Aconitum vulparia) produces whitish or straw-yellow flowers.[11]

Horticultural trade morphology

The lack of double-flowered forms in the horticultural trade stands in contrast with the other genera of

Helleborus, Pulsatilla—and the related Papaver
—retain some popularity. No doubled forms of Aconitum are known.

Ecology

Aconitum species have been recorded as food plant of the caterpillars of several

Eupithecia absinthiata, satyr pug E. satyrata, Aterpia charpentierana, and A. corticana.[13] It is also the primary food source for the Old World bumblebees Bombus consobrinus and Bombus gerstaeckeri.[14][15][16]

Aconitum flowers are pollinated by long-tongued bumblebees.[17] Bumblebees have the strength to open the flowers and reach the single nectary at the top of the flower on its inside.[17] Some short-tongued bees will bore holes into the tops of the flowers to steal nectar.[17] However, alkaloids in the nectar function as a deterrent for species unsuited to pollination. The effect is greater in certain species, such as Aconitum napellus, than in others, such as Aconitum lycoctonum.[18] Unlike the species with blue-purple flowers such as A. napellus, A. lycoctonum—which has off-white to pale yellow flowers, has been found to be a nectar source for butterflies.[17] This is likely due to the nectary flowers of the latter being more easily reachable by the butterflies; however, the differing alkaloid character of the two plants may also play a significant role or be the primary influence.[17]

Cultivation

cow parsnip in the rocky, tundra-like, mountainous terrain of Turnagain Pass
, Alaska.

The species typically utilized by gardeners fare well in well-drained evenly moist "humus-rich" garden soils like many in the related

pasqueflower
).

Award-winning hybrids

In the UK, the following have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:

  • A. × cammarum 'Bicolor'[19]
  • A. carmichaelii 'Arendsii'[20]
  • A. carmichaelii 'Kelmscott' [21]
  • A. 'Bressingham Spire'[22]
  • A. 'Spark's Variety'[23][24]
  • A. 'Stainless Steel'[25]

Toxicology

See also: Aconitine
Monkshood, Aconitum napellus

Monkshood and other members of the genus Aconitum contain substantial amounts of the highly toxic aconitine and related alkaloids, especially in their roots and tubers.[3] As little as 2 mg of aconite or 1 g of plant may cause death from respiratory paralysis or heart failure.[3]

Aconitine is a potent

ventricular arrhythmia
, and death.

Marked symptoms may appear almost immediately, usually not later than one hour, and "with large doses death is almost instantaneous". Death usually occurs within two to six hours in fatal poisoning (20 to 40 mL of

arrhythmias. Other features may include sweating, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, headache, and confusion. The main causes of death are ventricular arrhythmias and asystole, or paralysis of the heart or respiratory center.[26][27] The only post mortem signs are those of asphyxia.[4]

Treatment of poisoning is mainly supportive. All patients require close monitoring of

activated charcoal can be used if given within one hour of ingestion.[28] The major physiological antidote is atropine, which is used to treat bradycardia. Other drugs used for ventricular arrhythmia include lidocaine, amiodarone, bretylium, flecainide, procainamide, and mexiletine. Cardiopulmonary bypass is used if symptoms are refractory to treatment with these drugs.[27] Successful use of charcoal hemoperfusion has been claimed in patients with severe aconitine poisoning.[29]

Mild toxicity (headache, nausea and palpitations) as well as severe toxicity may be experienced from skin contact.[30] Paraesthesia, including tingling and feelings of coldness in the face and extremities, is common in reports of toxicity.[31]

Uses

Folk medicine

crude medicine
)

Aconite was described in Greek and Roman

Dioscorides, and Pliny the Elder,[32] Folk medicinal use of Aconitum species is practiced in some parts of Slovenia.[33]

Aconitum chasmanthum is listed as critically endangered,[34] Aconitum heterophyllum as endangered,[35] and Aconitum violaceum as vulnerable due to overcollection for use as an herbal medicine.[36]

A producer of Yunnan Baiyao, a traditional Chinese medicine remedy, has disclosed the remedy contains aconite.[37]

As a poison

The roots of A. ferox supply the

Himalaya, is said to be as poisonous as that of A. ferox or A. napellus.[4]

Several species of Aconitum have been used as arrow poisons. The

Aleuts of Alaska's Aleutian Islands for hunting whales. Usually, one man in a kayak
armed with a poison-tipped lance would hunt the whale, paralyzing it with the poison and causing it to drown.
Rig Veda.[42]

It has, albeit rarely, been hypothesized that Socrates was executed via an extract from an Aconitum species, such as Aconitum napellus, rather than via hemlock, Conium maculatum. Aconitum was commonly used by the ancient Greeks as an arrow poison but can be used for other forms of poisoning. It has been hypothesized that Alexander the Great and Ptolemy XIV Philopator were murdered via aconite.[43]

In 1524, in the first recorded

Clement VII is said to have intentionally poisoned prisoners with aconite laced marzipan to test the effects of an antidote. The treated prisoner survived, while the untreated prisoner suffered a painful death.[44]

In April 2021, the president of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Japarov, promoted aconite root as a treatment for COVID-19. Subsequently, at least four people were admitted to hospital suffering from poisoning.[45] Facebook had previously removed the President's posts advocating use of the substance, saying "We've removed this post as we do not allow anyone, including elected officials, to share misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm or spread false claims about how to cure or prevent COVID-19".[46]

Taxonomy

Subgenera of Aconitum and related taxa

Genetic analysis suggests that Aconitum as it was delineated before the 21st century is nested within

monophyletic, "A. gymnandrum" has now been reassigned to a new genus, Gymnaconitum. To make Delphinium monophyletic, the new genus Staphisagria was erected containing S. staphisagria, S. requini, and S. pictum.[47]

Species

Natural hybrids

  • Aconitum × austriacum
  • Aconitum × cammarum
  • Aconitum × hebegynum
  • Aconitum × oenipontanum (A. variegatum ssp. variegatum × ssp. paniculatum)
  • Aconitum × pilosiusculum
  • Aconitum × platanifolium (A. ycoctonum ssp. neapolitanum × ssp. vulparia)
  • Aconitum × zahlbruckneri (A. napellus ssp. vulgare × A. variegatum ssp. variegatum)

As a poison

Aconite has been understood as a poison from ancient times, and is frequently represented as such in fiction. In

Shasekishu, a 13th-century anthology collected by Mujū, the story describes servants who decide that the dried aconite root is really sugar, and suffer unpleasant though nonlethal symptoms after eating it.[53]
Shakespeare, in Henry IV Part II Act 4 Scene 4, refers to aconite, alongside rash gunpowder, working as strongly as the "venom of suggestion" to break up close relationships. In BBC drama Shakespeare and Hatherway, series 2, episode 9, a tennis player is poisoned through the skin of his palm by aconite smeared on the handle of his racquet.

As a well-known poison from ancient times, aconite is well-suited for historical fiction. It is the poison used by a murderer in the third of

Dae Jang Geum, set in the 15th and 16th centuries, Choi put wolf's bane in the previous queen's food. In Forever (2014 TV series) Dr. Henry Morgan identifies the plants in the villain's greenhouse as specifically Aconitum variegatum, which he has used to create a poison to release into the ventilation system of Grand Central Terminal
.

Aconite also lends itself to use as a fictional poison in modern settings. An overdose of aconite was the method by which Rudolph Bloom, father of Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses, committed suicide.

Wolf's bane

In his mythological poem Metamorphoses, Ovid tells how the herb comes from the slavering mouth of Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of Hades.[54] In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder supports the legend that aconite came from the saliva of the dog Cerberus when Hercules dragged him from the underworld.[55] As the veterinary historian John Blaisdell has noted, symptoms of aconite poisoning in humans bear some passing similarity to those of rabies: frothy saliva, impaired vision, vertigo, and finally a coma. Thus, some ancient Greeks possibly would have believed that this poison, mythically born of Cerberus's lips, was literally the same as that to be found inside the mouth of a rabid dog.[56]

In John Keats's poem Ode to Melancholy, wolf's bane is mentioned in the first verse as the source of "poisonous wine", possibly referring to Medea.

In the 1931 classic horror film

Van Helsing educates the nurse protecting Mina from Count Dracula to place sprigs of wolf's bane around Mina's neck for protection. Furthermore, he instructs that wolf's bane is a plant that grows in Central Europe. There, the natives use it to protect themselves against vampires. As long as the wolf's bane is present in Mina's bedroom, she will be safe from Count Dracula. During the night, Count Dracula desires to visit Mina. He appears outside her window in the form of a flying bat. He causes the nurse to become drowsy, and when she awakes from his spell, she removes the sprigs of wolf's bane, placing it in a hallway chest of drawers. With the removal of the wolf's bane from Mina's room, Count Dracula mysteriously appears and transports Mina to the dungeon of the castle.[57]

In the 1941 film The Wolf Man starring Lon Chaney Jr. and Claude Rains, the following poem is recited several times Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolf-bane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.[58]

In the 1943 French novel Our Lady of the Flowers, the boy Culafroy eats "Napel aconite", so that the "Renaissance would take possession of the child through the mouth."[59]

In the TV-show Game of Thrones, one of Tywin Lannister's commanders is assassinated by a dart, identified by Tywin as Wolf's Bane, due to its scent.

In the early 1980s, famed Spanish horror film star Paul Naschy named his production company "Aconito Films", an in-joke relating to the large number of werewolf movies he produced.

In mysticism

Wolf's bane is used as an analogy for the power of divine communion in Liber 65 1:13–16, one of

Holy Books of Thelema. Wolf's bane is mentioned in one verse of Lady Gwen Thompson's 1974 poem "Rede of the Wiccae", a long version of the Wiccan Rede
: "Widdershins go when Moon doth wane, And the werewolves howl by the dread wolfsbane."

Gallery

  • Aconitum napellus
    Aconitum napellus
  • Trailing white monkshood (A. reclinatum)
    Trailing white monkshood (A. reclinatum)
  • Southern blue monkshood (A. uncinatum)
    Southern blue monkshood (A. uncinatum)
  • Wild Alaskan monkshood (A. delphinifolium) is a flowering species that belongs to the family Ranunculaceae. The picture was taken in Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
    Wild Alaskan monkshood (A. delphinifolium) is a flowering species that belongs to the family Ranunculaceae. The picture was taken in Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

See also

  • Rufus T. Bush, industrial tycoon who died of accidental aconite poisoning

References

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External links

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