Bitterroot Restoration

The plant of Aconitum napellus is a hardy perennial, with a fleshy, spindle-shaped root, palecoloured when young, but subsequently acquiring a dark brown skin. The value of Aconite as a medicine has been more fully realized in modern times, and it now rank as one of our most useful drugs. It is much used in homoeopathy. The stem is about 3 feet high, with dark green, glossy leaves, deeply divided in palmate manner and flowers in erect clusters of a dark blue colour. The shape of the flower is specially designed to attract and utilize bee visitors, especially the humble bee. The sepals are purple - purple being specially attractive to bees - and are fancifully shaped, one of them being in the form of a hood. The petals are only represented by the two very curious nectaries within the hood, somewhat in the form of a hammer; the stamens are numerous and lie depressed in a bunch at the mouth of the flower. They are pendulous at first, but rise in succession and place their anthers forward in such a way that a bee visiting the flower for nectar is dusted with the pollen, which he then carries to the next flower he visits and thereby fertilizes the undeveloped fruits, which are in a tuft in the centre of the stamens, each carpel containing a single seed.

Botanical Name: Aconitum napellus (Linn.)
Family: Ranunculaceae
Origin of plant: South & east Europe, Asia
Flowering time: 7
Flowering color: Blue
Synonyms: Monkshood, Blue Rocket, Friar's Cap, Auld Wife's Huid

Description:

• It is much used in homoeopathy.
• It has very poisonous nature.
• Both tincture and liniment of Aconite are in general use.
• Aconite is also used in ointment and sometimes given as hypodermic injection.
• Preparations of Aconite are employed for outward application locally to the skin to diminish the pain of neuralgia, lumbago and rheumatism.
• The official tincture taken internelly diminishes the rate and force of the pulse in the early stages of fevers and slight local inflammations, such as feverish cold, larnyngitis, first stages of pneumonia and erysipelas; it relieves the pain of neuralgia, pleurisy and aneurism.
• In cardiac failure or to prevent same it has been used with success.