Atropanthe (Chinese name 天蓬子 tian peng zi) is a Monotypic taxon of belonging to tribe Hyoscyameae of subfamily Solanoideae of the family Solanaceae.
The single species, Atropanthe sinensis is native to the temperate forests of S. Central China (to Hunan). It is a herbaceous perennial (specifically a rhizomatous hemicryptophyte) which bears a marked similarity (particularly in regard to the form of the petal) to the related genus Atropa - whence the genus name Atropanthe ( meaning ‘having a flower resembling that of Atropa’).
Unlike Atropa, however (and in common with the other genera belonging to subtribe Hyoscyaminae of Hyoscyameae) Atropanthe bears a dry, pyxidial fruit, resembling a pot with a lid (Atropa, the sole member of subtribe Atropinae, bears, by contrast, a fruit taking the form of a juicy, glistening berry).
Description
A
Glabrousness (apart from the
Trichome inflorescence)
subshrub or
perennial herb arising from thick
to a height of 0.8-1.5 m and bearing erect,
terete or angled stems of a dark blue-purple colour, each bearing two or three green branches.
Leaves mostly paired, petiolate, entire, petioles 1-4.5 cm; leaf blades elliptic to ovate, 11-22 × 4–12 cm, papery, glabrous, bases cuneate, slightly decurrent, tips pointed.
Flowers greenish-yellow, borne singly in the leaf axils. Corolla circa 3.2 cm, 5-lobed, somewhat
zygomorphic, tubular-campanulate, twice as long as calyx, 15-veined; lobes subequal, corolla aestivation quincuncial.
inserted in corolla tube, unequal, shorter than or equaling corolla; filaments circa 2 cm, unequal, circinnate in the bud and curved at flowering, inserted near the base of the corolla, pubescent at base; anthers somewhat heart-shaped, ventrifixed, 4-4.5mm
dehiscing longitudinally. Disc orange, ringlike, slightly lobed.
Pedicel at time of flowering elongate, glabrous 1-2.5 cm.
Sepal at flowering tubular-campanulate or somewhat urceolate, slightly inflated, somewhat bent, 15-veined, with 5 main veins, papery, glabrous, circa 2 cm; lobes subequal, deltate to rounded erose to ciliate,
Glabrousness.
Pedicel at time of fruiting barely thickened, 3-3.5 cm. Fruiting calyx hanging downward, the broad inflated base uppermost and the constricted but open mouth held below, conical, ovoid, or oblong, usually lantern-like/
Spinning top-shaped, 2.5–3 cm in diameter, inserted abruptly on pedicel and easily detached from it after drying. Fruit a pyxidium (i.e. a capsule resembling a pot with a lid), the downward-pointing operculum (= "lid") dehiscing to liberate seeds which fall, on ripening, through the downward-pointing opening of the bladder-like fruiting calyx. Pyxidium turbinate (shaped like a spinning top) 1.8–2 cm in diameter, containing some 40-50 seeds.
Seeds brown, rectangular, somewhat compressed, circa 3 × 2.5 mm, the testa thick, bearing a wavy-netted pattern (foveolate).
Range
An area encompassing NW
Guizhou, W
Hubei, SE
Sichuan and NE
Yunnan and including the Hengduan Mountains.
Habitat
Humid places (moist soils), along ditches, forests; at altitudes of 1400–3000 m.
Medicinal use
Like all the other
genus of the Solanaceous tribe
Hyoscyameae (of which the best-known member is the infamous deadly nightshade
), the genus Atropanthe is rich in
- compounds possessing
anticholinergic properties which are therapeutically useful in small doses and dangerously hallucinogenic (
deliriant) in larger ones.
The roots of the single species
A. sinensis are used in Traditional Chinese medicine for the relief of muscular spasm and pain.
Chemistry
Atropanthe sinensis contains the tropane alkaloids
hyoscyamine and
anisodine and also the
pyrrolidine alkaloid Cuscohygrine, a.k.a. cuscohygrine, (which is not one of the tropane alkaloids, but may be biogenetically related to them
) and occurs also in the closely related genera
Atropa,
Anisodus and
Przewalskia.
[An-ming, Lu and Zhi-yu, Zhang Studies of the Subtribe Hyoscyaminae in China, paper no. 5 in Solanaceae : Biology and Systematics, Ed. William G. D'Arcy, pub. Columbia University Press 1986. Pages 61, 64 & 67.]
Translation of Chinese common name
The Chinese vernacular name for A. sinensis, 天蓬子 has been transliterated into Latin script both as tiān péng zi and tien pung tzu. An approximate pronunciation (not allowing fully for the tonal aspect of Chinese) is "tien pong dzuu"
Retrieved at 9.44 on Thursday 6/7/23.
The name is composed of the individual characters 天 tiān "heaven"/"sky"/"
Retrieved at 18.39 on Wednesday 5/7/23. 蓬 péng "disheveled/flourishing/vigorous/forming clumps"
[
at 18.30 on Wednesday 5/7/23.] and 子 zi variously "son", "seed"
Retrieved at 18.46 on Wednesday 5/7/23.
The two-character compound 天蓬 (tiān péng - minus the 子 zi) translates into English as "canopy.
[Google Translate: Traditional Chinese into English "https://translate.google.com/?sl=zh-TW&tl=en&text=天蓬%20&op=translate&hl=en Retrieved at 18.56 on Wednesday 5/7/23]
天蓬子 (tiān péng zi) in its entirety could thus, prosaically, indicate a vigorous and untidy, clump-forming plant, forming a canopy of foliage in which its seeds hang or are borne, unless 天 (tiān) were translated in the more metaphysical sense of "heaven"/"heavenly", intended to suggest that the effects of consuming the plant could be perceived as somehow
- a suggestion compatible with the well-documented use in ancient Chinese
Taoism practices of other Solanaceous plants as
entheogens enabling the taker to "see spirits".
[Schultes, Richard Evans and Hofmann, Albert The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens – revised and enlarged second edition, pub. Charles C. Thomas 1980 pps. 288 and 337.]
Botanical translations of 蓬 (péng)
A further complication in the translation of the plant name for Atropanthe 天蓬子 (tiān péng zi) is that the character 蓬 (péng) has a number of botanical translations in its own right, yielding the meanings "type of
raspberry", Korean mugwort and
Erigeron.
The raspberry plant (
Rubus sp.) and
Artemisia princeps (
Asteraceae), the Korean mugwort have in common the characteristic of being very vigorous plants and the mugwort is considered not only an edible plant but also a magical one, holding a prominent place in the story of the bear-woman,
Ungnyeo - the foundational myth of the Korean nation.
It may be that
Atropanthe sinensis
Retrieved at 20.51 on Wednesday 5/7/23.
A. mairei synonym for plant in different family
A potential source of confusion in regard to the monotypic status of this Solanaceous genus is the existence of the binomial
Atropanthe mairei , which is listed by Kew as a synonym of
Cyananthus flavus subsp. montanus (the genus
Cyananthus belongs, not to the Solanaceae, but to the bellflower family
Campanulaceae).
Atropanthe mairei was identified by Lauener in 1978 as being
Cyananthus albiflorus , which is now correctly known as
C. flavus subsp. montanus
[Lauener, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 37: 147. 1978.]
[NOVON 2(2): 124-128. 1992. Notes on the Solanaceae of China and Neighboring Areas, William G. D'Arcy & Zhang Zhi-yun http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/china/novon/darcy.htm Retrieved at 18.32 on Tuesday 4/7/23.]
Gallery
File:Atropanthe sinensis GiardinoBotanicoAlpinoViote 20170902 B.jpg| A.sinensis (planted beside pink-flowered Anemone japonica and Paeonia ludlowii) in Viote Alpine Botanical Garden, South Tyrol. Italian language label lists ‘sedative, narcotic, anaesthetic’
