Abstract
Aconitum spp., aconite or monkshood, is a perennial herb of the family Ranun-culaceae. It is erect and grows to a height of about 1 m. The leaves are deep green and lustrous, and purple flowers bloom in the autumn. The aconite consists of both parent and daughter roots. Both are obconical in shape, dark brown in color, from 4 to 10 cm in length and from 1 to 3 cm in diameter at the crown. In northern countries, natives used the root extract of the plants as an arrow poison. In Japan this poison was also used by the Ainu for making poisoned arrows for bear hunting. It is well known that the roots contain diterpenoid alkaloids which are mainly classified into a strongly toxic group(aconitine-type) and a weakly toxic group(atisine type). The former include aconitine, mesaconitine, hypaconitine, jesaconitine, and neopelline. The latter covers anisine, kobushine, pseudokobusine, telatisine, songorine, atidine, napelline, heteratisine, ignarine, and hysognavine. The roots also contain a cardiac-activating alkaloid, higenamine (Kosuge and Yokota 1976), and coryneine (Konno et al. 1984) (Fig. 1).
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Shoyama, Y., Nishioka, I., Hatano, K. (1991). Aconitum spp. (Monkshood): Somatic Embryogenesis, Plant Regeneration, and the Production of Aconitine and Other Alkaloids. In: Bajaj, Y.P.S. (eds) Medicinal and Aromatic Plants III. Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, vol 15. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-84071-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-84071-5_4
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