Hyoscyamus niger - Substances & Homeopatic Remedies - For Homeopaths - Homeovision

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Description of the substance

Botanical Information:  This annual, or biennial heavy - scented, viscid - pubescent, or  villous  herb, usually attains a growth of from 1 to 2 feet.  Root  fusiform;  stem  rigid.  Leaves  oblong, acute, the lower large, spreading upon the ground, sinuate toothed and angled, the upper more or less amplexicaul and partly decurrent, the uppermost tending to be entire and bract - like, subtending the flowers.  Inflorestence  in second, scorpioid, leafy spikes;  flowers  numerous, sessile.  Calyx  large, tubular - campanulate or urceolate;  border  5 - cleft, spreading;  teeth  equal, broadly triangular, acute.  Corolla  oblique, funnel - form, dull yellowish, strongly rectculated with anastomosing purple veins;  limb  spreading, inclined to be unequally 5 - lobed and plaited;  lobes  shallow, rounded, and more or less acute.  Stamens 5 , declined, all perfect, and slightly exserted;  filaments  inserted upon the corolla - tube near its base and continuing attached for about half their length, where they are also hairy;  anthers  purple, turned upon their backs, and opening by a longitudinal chink.  Style  filiform;  stigma  dilated - capitate.  Capsule  membranaceous, 2 - celled, enclosed by the persistent calyx, which is now many - costate and reticulate veiny;  dehiscence  by an apical circumscissile line, the top falling away like a lid.  Seeds  very numerous, roundish - oval, slightly hollowed upon each side;  testa  conspicuously reticulated;  embryo  much curved, axile;  albumen  copious. (Millspaugh’s Medicinal Plants).

Habitat: Henbane is indigenous to Europe and Western Asia, from whence it was introduced into this country by the English settlers, in the seventeenth century, It grows, with us, near dwellings and settlements, from Nova Scotia and Canada, southward to the environs of New York City and Brooklyn, where it blossoms from June to August. The seeds are notably tenacious of life; hence the plant is often found in localities after having disappeared years before. (Dr. Bigelow says: "About ten years since (1807), a intersects the Common in Boston, was opened for the purpose of repairs. In the following season a distinct row of very luxuriant plants of Henbane covered the whole of the drain, although none of them had been observed to grow in the vicinity the preceding year. The seeds which produced these plants had probably been buried for more than fifteen years. " Am. Med. Bot., 1, 161. (Millspaugh’s Medicinal Plants).

Introduced to North America prior to 1672, as Grieve quotes a contemporary source as saying henbane is a plant ì sprung up since the English planted and kept cattle in New England.î

It appears to have been more common in Britain in Elizabeth Tudorís time.

Henbane is a member of the important order Solanaceae, to which belong the Potato, Tobacco and Tomato, and also the valuable Belladonna. There are about eleven species of the genus Hyoscyamus, distributed from the Canary Island over Europe and Northen Africa to Asia. All those which have been investigated contain similar principles and possess similar properties. It is poisonous in all its parts, and neither drying nor boiling destroys the toxic principle. The leaves are the poweful portion, produce giddiness and stupor.