910 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS.
the same point. Flower pale, purple, tinged with yellow or green, fin. diam., single or drooping, usually axillary stalks. Calyx lobed nearly to the base. Segments leaf-like. Corolla bell- shaped ; lobes 5, short, broad, spreading. Base of filaments hairy, dilated, covering the ovary. Ovary 2-celled. Style longer than the Corolla; stigma green. Berry globose, -fin. diam., purple black, surrounded at base by the enlarged spreading Calyx-leaves, a little more acuminate in the Himalayan plant than in the European.
Use : — Officinal in both Pharmacopasias.
The following report has been received from the Economic Botanist to the Botanical Survey of India, to whom sun-dried roots of Atropa Belladonna, grown at the Kutchery garden, Naini Tal, were submitted : —
"... The roots consisted of two kinds, vis., from one-year-old plants and from two-year-old plants, and were registered respectively No. 34375 and No. 34376. The alkaloid was estimated in each sample of root and it was found to occur to the extent of 0'4 per cent, in that from the one-year-old plants and 45 per cent, in that from the two-year-old plants. Belladonna roots obtained from Europe and used in British medicinal preparation con- tains from *2 to *6 per cent, of total alkaloids. The roots grown in Naini Tal are therefore of good average quality and are suitable for use in the Medical Store Departments of India."
Considering the fact that the soil in which these plants were grown cannot by any means be regarded as good, the report that the roots are of good average quality is most encouraging, and fully justifies the experiments being made on a more extensive scale.
In better soil, which is easily obtainable in the Raragarh neighbourhood, I believe that far heavier yields and a considerably higher percentage of alkaloid will be obtained.
The Naini Tal results worked out as follows : —
Belladonna roots— 1 year old ... 3,570 lbs. per acre (alkaloid 0'4 per cent).
Do. do. 2 year old ...3,545 ,, „ (alkaloid 0'45 per cent).
From the above it will be noticed that although the percentage of alkaloid was far greater in the two-year old roots the quantity harvested was actually less. The reason for this I am unable at present to explain beyond the fact that it was probably due to the plants having been grown in poor soil.
A point that should not be lost sight of is the ease with which this drug can be grown and the imperviousuess of the crop to insect pests and animal life. A good stock of acclimatized seed has been saved from both Naini Tal and Douglas Dale grown plants. The roots of the Douglas Dale grown plants rot during the rains, but seed, which is of a lighter colour than that produced in Naini Tal, has been saved.
Belladonna root is at present obtained from England by the Medical Stores
