Physostigma (poisonous)

Legume family. Pharmacopoeial name: Calabar beans - Calabar semen (formerly: Semen Calabar).

Very poisonous!

Botanical description. Climbing shrub with large trifoliolate leaves and elongated stipules. Red or purple papilionaceous flowers are arranged in racemes. Occurs in the tropics of West Africa, India and Brazil.

Active constituents: alkaloids (including physostigmine (eserine)), resins, proteins, essential oil and others.

Therapeutic action and uses. As a medicinal agent it is used only in veterinary medicine for colic. (In the form of the salicylic acid salt it is used to lower intraocular pressure in glaucoma.) Serves as raw material for obtaining the poisonous alkaloid physostigmine.

based on materials from the website www.medicina.kharkov.ua