Botany names

Description - This is a medium sized deciduous tree with rough gray coloured bark with lenticels. Sharp spines are present throughout the stem and branches. Glabrous, Shining, dark green leaves when old. Pink coloured when young. Greenish - white coloured flowers in terminal pedunculate cymes. Fruits are globose orange red coloured when ripe, many seeds .

Chemical Constituents- It usually contains about 3% a total alkaloids, nearly half of which is strychnine and the rest mostly brucine. Plant contains alkaloids isostrychnine, methoxystrychnine, colubrine, protostrychnine, normacussibne B and 4- hydroxy-3-methoxy strychnine. Flowers contain alkaloids strychnine, brucine, vomicine, icajine, novacine. Fruits contain glucoside loganin. Leaves and root bark contain brucine, strychnine, vomicine and methoxystrychnine. Fruit pulp contains salidroside, cuchiloside. Seeds contain indole alkaloid 3-methoxyicajine, 15- hydroxy-strychnine, N-Methyl-sec.-pseudo-Beta-colubrine with 4- hydroxy-strychnine. Heat treated seeds contain isobrucine, isobrucine N-oxide, isostrychnine N-oxide and 2-hydroxy-3-methoxy strychnine.

Use - It increases peristalsis and blood pressure. It is toxic in large doses producing convulsions, respiratory failure, asphyxiation and death. It is a stimulant of central nervous system. Nux-vomica consists of dry ripe seeds which is used as a tonic, stimulant and febrifuge, also in preparations of nervous disorders. Seeds prescribed in colic and as an emetic, also forms a constituent of medicated preparations for the scalp. Leaves applied as a poultice on sloughing wounds and maggot infested ulcers. Roots and bark febrifuge. Decoction of bark used in epilepsy. Juice of fresh wood used in dysentery, fevers, cholera and dyspepsia