Wildflowers of the Stuttgart Area
Atropa belladona
| Family : | SOLANACEAE (Nightshade Family including Potatoes, Tomatoes, Tobacco) |
| Common Name (UK) : | Belladonna / Deadly Nightshade |
| Common Name (DE) : | Tollkirsche |
| Common Name (FR) : | Belladone |
| Habitat : | It is mainly found on lime |
| Remarks : | "The berries are full of a dark, inky juice, and are intensely sweet, and their attraction to children on that account, has from their poisonous properties, been attended with fatal results...Belladonna is supposed to have been the plant that poisoned the troops of Marcus Antonius during the Parthian wars. Plutarch gives a graphic account of the strange effects that followed its use...According to old legends, the plant belongs to the devil who goes about trimming and tending it in his leisure, and can only be diverted from its care on one night in the year, that is on Walpurgis, when he is preparing for the witches' sabbath. The apples of Sodom are held to be related to this plant, and the name Belladonna is said to record an old superstition that at certain times it takes the form of an enchantress of exceeding loveliness, whom it is dangerous to look upon, though a more generally accepted view is that the name was bestowed on it because its juice was used by the Italian
ladies to give their eyes greater brilliancy, the smallest quantity having the effect of dilating the pupils of the eye...Mandrake, a foreign species of Atropa (A. Mandragora), was used in Pliny's day as an anaesthetic for operations. Its root contains an alkaloid, Mandragorine. The sleeping potion of Juliet was a preparation from this plant - perhaps also the Mandrake wine of the Ancients." from Botanical.com The particular alkaloid produced by deadly nightshade is atropine, which has several uses in medicine. |
| First appearing : | June |
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