STRAMONIUM 



47 



Description. The stem of the thornapple is stout and erect, branch- 

 ing repeatedly, and producing in the forks of the branches a leaf and 

 a single flower with a tubular calyx and large, white, funnel-shaped 

 corolla. This flower is succeeded by an erect, spiny capsule about 

 the size of a walnut. In addition to mature and young leaves the 

 drug therefore frequently contains the remains of the flower with a 

 tubular calyx and yellowish corolla, or of the young, shrivelled, 

 bristly fruit. 



The dried leaves are usually much shrivelled and wrinkled ; they 

 are of a dark greyish 

 green colour, especially on 

 the upper surface, ovate 

 in outline, petiolate, and 

 often unequal at the base. 

 They attain 20 cm. or 

 more in length, and are 

 characterised by the very 

 coarse pointed teeth which 

 impart to the margin a 

 sinuate-dentate outline ; 

 the apex of the leaves is 

 shortly acuminate. On 

 the under surface the 

 midrib is distinct though 

 not very prominent ; the 

 lateral veins leave it at an 

 angle of about 45 and 

 divide when near the mar- 

 gin, one branch passing 

 into the pointed lobe of 

 the leaf, whilst the other 

 anastomoses with other, 



tertiary, veins. When Fia 3 2. -Thornapple leaf. Under surface, 

 quite young the leaves are showing the venation. Natural size, 



covered with stout curved 



hairs, but as they reach maturity these fall off, and full-grown 

 leaves are glabrous or nearly so. The odour of the drug, though 

 not strong, is disagreeable and characteristic ; the taste is un- 

 pleasantly bitter. 



Microscopical Characters. The distinctive characters of stramonium leaves 

 are the abundant cluster crystals of calcium oxalate in the mesophyll ; the 

 hairs though not numerous, are also characteristic, being either simple, uniserial, 

 three- to five-celled, and warty, or small, shortly stalked, and glandular. The 

 leaves possess in addition typical Solanaceous stomata and bicollateral bundles 

 devoid of bast-fibres. 



