Alkaloids
➢ Belladona
➢ Hyoscyamus
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Content
Alkaloids
✓ Source, diagnostic characters, constituents, tests and uses of
➢ Belladona
➢ Hyoscyamus
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Objectives
• At the end of this lecture, student will be able to
✓ Discuss the source, diagnostic characters, constituents, tests and
uses of
Belladona
Hyoscyamus
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Belladona
Synonym
Folia belladonna, deadly night shade leaves, belladonna leaf,
Banewort
Source
Consists of fresh or dried leaves and flowering tops, roots, root
stocks of Atropa belladonna
Family
Solanaceae
Perennial plant with large fleshy tapering root
and rootlets
Stem is erect, herbaceous, branching
Leaves- alternate in lower part, unequal pairs
in upper part duwewtwo.DaudlnoMatiixo.cnom 4
Belladona
Morphology
Leaf:
❖ Ovate to broadly ovate
❖ 6-10 cm in length, sometimes up to 20 cm
❖ Dull yellowish green
❖ Lamina- Simple, entire, nearly glabrous, acuminate apex, acute base
with decurrent lamina
❖ Secondary veins leave lamina at 60o angle and curve upwards as they
approach margin
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Belladona
Morphology
Leaf:
❖ Venation – anastamose
❖ Petiole – short
❖ Leaves are thin, brittle, when broken small white points are evident-
cells with sandy calcium oxalate, which also gives rise to numerous
minute prominence on the surface of the lamina
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Belladona
Flowers:
✓ Campanulate
✓ 2.5-3.5 cm long, 1-1.4 cm wide
✓ Peidcel- curved
✓ Locules – 2
✓ Ovules – infinite
✓ Placentation – Axile
✓ Corolla- purple when fresh, brown when dried
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Belladona
Microscopy:
Leaf:
✓ Dorsiventral
✓ Cuticle: Striated
✓ Epidermis: Wavy walls
✓ Trichomes: Covering- 4-5 celled uniseriate
✓ Glandular – short and clavate, long uniseriate with spherical
unicellular head
✓ Stomata: Anisocytic
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Belladona
Microscopy:
Leaf:
Mesophyll:
✓ Palisade cell- single layer
✓ Spongy parenchyma – idioblast, sandy microsphenoidal crystals
✓ Vascular bundle: bicollateral
✓ Collenchyma on either surface of the midrib
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Belladona
Constituents:
✓ Hyoscyamine – Chief constituent
✓ Hyoscine
✓ Atropine absent in samples with young leaves
✓ Drug with older leaves – Atropine 5-40 %
✓ Alkaloid is present in all parts: calyx and young ovary (0.79%), ripe
seeds (0.83 %), root (0.5 %), Fresh fruits (0.12 %)
✓ Alkaloid occur in parenchyma of leaves, particularly in lower
epidermis
✓ Volatile base: Pyridine, N methylpyrroline, N methylpyrrolidine, a
diamine
✓ Fluorescent substance – Beta- methyl aesculetin (scopoletin,
chrysatropic acid)
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Adulterants: Belladona
Phytolacca decandra Ailanthus gladulosa
✓ Phytolaccaceae ✓ Simarubaceae
✓ Pokeweed ✓ Italian belladonna,
✓ Portugese belladona ✓ Trichomes- unicellular/bicellular, conical,
✓ trichomes absent lignified
✓ Stomata – anamocytic ✓ Stomata – anamocytic
✓ Crystals- raphides ✓ Cluster crystals
✓ Allied drugs:
✓ Scopolia carniolica, solanaceae, resembles, no covering trichomes
✓ Datura stramonium
✓ Solanum nigrum
✓ Atropa accuminata – Indian belladonna
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Belladona
Uses:
• Parasympathetic depressant- spasmolytic
• Adjuvant therapy in peptic ulcer, colitis, diarrhea
• Anticholinergic effect- used to control excess motor activity of GI
tract and spasm in urinary tract
• Local anaesthetic
• Anodyne
• To relieve pain externally
• Internally to check sweating in pthisis
• Sedative to respiratory nerves
• To relieve spasmodic cough
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Hyoscyamus
Synonym
Henbane, Folia Hyoscyami
Source
Dried leaves and flowering tops of Hyoscyamus niger
Family
Solanaceae
✓ Consists of matted leaves or leaves and flowering tops with stem
✓ Pale greyish green colour
✓ Calmmy and resinous to touch
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Hyoscyamus
First Biennial henbane: (Specimen consisting of leaves only)
✓ Ovate to lanceolate
✓ More or less broken or crumpled
✓ 20-30 cm long, 7-10 cm wide
✓ Petiole- flat, 5 cm long
✓ Lamina- coarsely dentate
✓ Apex –acute, acute points at the lobes which are about 5-6 in each
side
✓ Base – acute
✓ Midrib- broad,
✓ Trichomes-Glandulawr,w awb.DuunlodMaixn.cto omn midrib and prin14cipal veins
Hyoscyamus
Second Biennial henbane or flowering tops:
Consists of more slender parts of stem together with leaves and
flowers
Stems:
✓ Hollow
✓ Light green
✓ Covered with glandular trichomes
✓ Furrows because of shrinkage
✓ Alternate leaf scars
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Hyoscyamus
Leaf:
✓ Sessile
✓ Oblong ovate
✓ Crumpled and broken
✓ 5-20 cm long, 3-8 cm wide, 2-5 coarse teeth or lobes on each side
Base-cordate
✓ Midrib- broad, flat, with 4-5 veins leaving at right angles , pinnately
arranged, terminates at the lobes or teeth
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Hyoscyamus
Flowers:
✓ Crowded together
✓ Pedicel short – 4 mm long
✓ Calyx – urceolate with 5 lobes each with an apical spine
✓ Corolla – funnel shaped, five slightly unequal, rounded lobes
yellow with purple veins
✓ Androceium- purple anthers
✓ Ovary- bicarpellary, 2 locules
✓ Ovules- Numerous
✓ Placentation – Axile
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Hyoscyamus
Annual henbane
✓ Mostly imported drug of poor quality
✓ Characters similar to that of biennial henbane, but stems are more
slender, leaves smaller
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Hyoscyamus
Microscopy
Leaf:
✓ Epidermis with smooth cuticle, anticlinal walls
✓ Stomata- anisocytic
✓ Trichomes:
❖ Covering- conical, uniseriate, 2-4 celled
❖ Glandular- uniseriate, 2-6 celled, ovoid multicellular
and some clavate glandular
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Hyoscyamus
Mesophyll:
(Usually dorsiventral, occasionally isobilateral or undifferentiated)
✓ Palisade- single layer
✓ Crystal layer – beneath the palisade layer (Tetragonal prisms,
cluster, sandy microsphenoidal)
✓ Midrib- Meristele surrounded by endodermis with starch
✓ Narrow arc of xylem, beneath which narrow band of phloem
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Hyoscyamus
Constituents:
✓ Hyoscyamine and traces of scopolamine (hyoscine)
✓ Total alkaloid- 0.045-0.14 %
✓ Annual henbane – 0.03 %
✓ Seeds – 0.05 % (alkaloids present in testa only), 20 % fixed oil
Tests:
✓ Vitali morin test
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Hyoscyamus
Uses:
✓ Cerebral and spinal sedative
✓ Does not excite as that of belladonna, hence given in insomnia
when opium cannot be given
✓ Relieves griping caused by drastic purgatives
✓ Seeds placed over hot coal and vapours produced allowed to enter
mouth, is domestic remedy for toothache
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Hyoscyamus
Substituents and Adulterants
✓ H. albus, Continental henbane
✓ H. muticus, Egyptian henbane
✓ H. reticulates, Indian henbane
✓ Leaves of dandelion, Taraxacum officinale (Compositae) –
substituted for henbane
✓ H. aureus, H. pusillus- Hyoscine, principal alkaloid
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Summary
Belladona
✓ Consists of fresh or dried leaves and flowering tops, roots, root
stocks of Atropa belladonna
Atropa
✓ Dried leaves and flowering tops of Hyoscyamus niger
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Thank You
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