Root - Specimen details
| Catalogue Number: 47223 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Image | Plant Name | 114.01 SOLANACEAE Withania somnifera | Entry Book Number | ||
| Artefact Name | Root | Vernacular Name | |||
| Iso Country | India | TDWG Region | India | ||
| Parts Held | Root | Geography Description | India | ||
| Uses | RootUse: MEDICINES User: Not defined | TDWG use | MEDICINES | ||
| Storage | Bottles, boxes etc | Related Items | |||
| Donor | Pharm Soc GB | Donor No | 29 C 5 | ||
| Donor Date | Donor Notes | ||||
| Collector | Collector No | ||||
| Collection Notes | Collection Date | ||||
| Exhibition | Expedition | ||||
| Number Components | Publication | ||||
| Notes: | Label source: The plant consists of a stout, long, tapering, woody root, an inch or more in diameter, surmounted by a knotted crown, from which spring several shrubby flexuose branches, which are generally round and from 1 to 2 feet long. The leaves are, double, ovate, variable in size, but not more than three inches long ; flowers axillary, subsessile, crowded at the ends of the branches ; corolla campanulate, yellowish green, very small ; berry red, smooth, size of a pea, covered by a membranaceous clos, ely fitting calyx, open at the apex ; seeds numerous, yellowish white, reniform, laterally compressed, about one sixteenth of an inch long; testa honeycombed. The whole plant is covered with small branched and pointed white hairs, which give it a hoary a, ppearance. The odour is pungent and disagreeable, like the urine of horses; this is expressed in the native name, Ashvagangha. The root consists of a twisted, white, woody column, which is covered by a thickish soft bark, containing a good deal of red col, ouring matter, visible through the greyish epidermis. The microscopic characters are not in any way remarkable. The fresh root bark has the same odour as the plant; the leaves and fruit are a little bitter and nauseous. This drug must not be confounded wi, th the Asgund of the Bazaars, described in the next article. We have no reliable information regarding the physiological action of Physalis somnifera. | ||||