NAPELLUS. 167 
1885! (Hb. Cale); Thangu, Praín!(Hb. Calc.); without precise locality, but probably 
from the Singalela Range, Waits Coll. letter No. 1484! (Hb. Cale); and Watt's 
Coll. 7037! (Hb. Cale. and Edinb.); Lachung, 11,000—12,000 ft., Hooker, 29-8-1849 ! 
(Hb. Kew); 12,000 ft, Gammie 7581 (Hb. Cale.).— TisET: Chumbi; Yatung, Hebson! 
(Hb. Kew); Tsang; Kings Coll. 1882! (Hb. Calc.) 
VERNACULAR NAMES: Bikh, Rogers ; Kalo Bithoma, Watt’s Collector in letter No. 1484, 
nct elsewhere; Dongho, King; Gniong Mot and Shodduk Mot, J. D. Hooker on labels. 
PROPERTIES AND USES: А. spicatum is the principal source of the **bikh" or * bish " 
of the Calcutta market. . An account of the mode of collecting the root in Sikkim 
may be found in Kanny Lall Dey’s “The Indigenous Drugs of India” (1896), where 
it is, however, introduced erroneously as A. Napellus. The poisonous principle is 
pseudaconitine. The existence of this principle in certain Indian Aconites was known, 
as early as 1857, to Schott, and its chemical properties were first examined by 
Hiibschmann in 1868, who proposed the name pseudaconitine for it, but it is impossible to 
fix on the particular species which led Schott and Hiibschmann to the discovery of the 
new alkaloid. In 1870, however, T. B. Groves read, at the meeting of the British 
Pharmaceutical Conference at Liverpool а paper on “ Nepal Aconite,” which contains 
an account of his method of obtaining pseudaconitine from aconite roots alleged to 
have come from Nepal, and also a description and figure of those roots. Both agree 
completely with the tubers of A. spicatum. Whether Wright and Luff who subsequently 
worked out the constitution of pseudaconitine dealt with the same species, I 
have по means of knowing; but there is no doubt that the material on which Prof, 
Dunstan’s and Е. Н. Carr’s paper “ On pseudaconitine” (Transact. Chem. бос. 1897, 
reprinted in Agric. Ledger 1898, No. 8) and Prof. Dunstan’s article < The constituents 
of some Indian Aconites" (in Agric. Ledger, 1897, No. 19), were based belonged, во 
far as it is stated to have come from Sikkim, mainly if not exclusively to А, spicatum, 
The amount of pseudaconitine found in the tubers of this species may, according to 
Prof. Dunstan, reach as much as 0°50 р. с. 
This species is chiefly characterised by the robust growth, the large tubers, the dense tomentum of 
the inflorescence and the short turgid follicles, The tubers are ‘among the largest in the genus, the 
stems often are as thick asa thumb at the base and may attain a height of more than L5 m, Some 
of these very robust specimens were described as var. crassicaulis whilst others with laser panicles 
than usual formed the basis for another variety, namely laxiflora, Both forms have been collected 
in the same locality, for instance, at Sandakphu by Gamble, and near Lachung by J. D. Hooker, 
and they represent to me merely individual variations. : 
There are, in the museum at Kew, roots of an aconite from which the poison applied to their arrow 
barbs by the Akhas is made (Tezpur, Assam; Surg. R. Campbell), They аге quite like those of 
A. spicatum. ; 
Рілте 106. Aconitum spicatum S/apf.—1, Upper part of ап inflorescence, large 
state (referred to var. crassicaule by Brühl); 2 and 3, intermediate cauline leaves; 
4 and 5, pairs of tubers; б, а divided daughter-tuber with the root-fibres rubbed 
off—natural size; Т, a section through а daughter-tuber—enlarged. 
from Phalut, Kurz; 8—5, from Sandakphu, Watts 
(1, from Lachung, Gammie; 2, a 
Coll; 6, from Sikkim, without precise locality, Watts Сой, letter No. 1484; from 
Sandakphu, Rogers.) 
PrarE 107. Aconitum spicatum Stapf. 
infructescenco— natural size; 3, а flower, 
—1, An inflorescence, rather narrow state; 2, an 
in longitudinal section; 4, а helmet of a more 
