Angiosperms • Hairy short-stalked aconitum
Aconitum brachypodum var. laxiflorum
Aconitum with short stalks, belonging to the anthracym, buttercup family, aconitum genus. It grows at an altitude of 3000 to 4300 meters on mountain grassy slopes, rocky slopes or steep cliffs, and is mainly distributed in northern Yunnan, northwestern And western Sichuan. Photo taken on Hakuba Snow Mountain.
Aconitum brachyceum is a variant of Aconitum brachyceum, the main difference being that there are short soft hairs that stretch on the inflorescence. During the flowering period, the hairy short-stalked aconite is definitely the beauty of the flowing rock beach, its slender body, the stem can reach 80 cm high, and it has a feeling of standing out from the crowd among the low alpine plants. When you enter the flowering period, bring some gradient blue-purple flowers to decorate the flowing rock beach very beautifully. The hairy short-stemmed aconitum in the photo has just experienced a heavy rain, and the rain has stained the flowers, adding a little beauty.
However, this "beauty" is a well-known "poisonous beauty".
As a Yunnan native, you must have heard the famous "Artemisia annua on the Snow", which is a well-known medicine in the southwest pole. However, artemisia annua on the snow is not a species, but a collective name for several aconitum root roots, such as short-stemmed aconitum, curved hair short-handled aconitum, Xuanwei aconitum, small white brace, iron rod hammer, fu hair iron rod hammer and other roots, and the hairy short-handled aconitum root is also one of them.
In the "Measures for the Administration of Toxic Drugs for Medical Use" promulgated and implemented in 1988, Artemisia annua on the snow was listed as a toxic Chinese medicine variety together with the famous arsenic cream.
How toxic are they? The answer is lethal! Because its toxicity mainly affects the nerve, circulatory, digestive and respiratory systems, the causes of death are mostly severe arrhythmias and respiratory paralysis.
In fact, several species of aconitum plants are toxic, and their toxic components are mainly diterpenoid alkaloids, of which the most toxic is aconitine. In the past, folk often used to make arrow poison to hunt wild beasts, and legend has it that Guan Yu poisoned arrows, and its poison was aconitum poison.
Source: Yunnan Release
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Xi
Editor: Zhou Xiaoxue
Final Judge: Qian Hongbing