Did you know? Importance of DHATURA/Datura metel ?

DHATURA / DHOTRA

Botanical Name : Datura metel 




Family : Solanaceae.

Synonyms

Brugmansia waymanii Paxton, Datura aegyptiaca Vis. Datura alba F.Muell. Datura bojeri Delile, Datura chlorantha Hook., Datura fastuosa L. Datura muricata Link, Datura nigra Hassk., Datura nilhummatu Dunal, Datura waymanii (Paxton) Steud.

Regional Names :

English : Thorn apple, Devil’s trumpwet,
Hindi : Datura, Dhatura, Dhaturi,
Marathi : Dhattura,
Sanskrit : Sveta-dhaturah, Kanakahvya, Urdu : Dhattura, Kannada : Dattura, Dhattura, Dhusturi, Duttura, Ummatta, Ummatti, Unmatta, Malayalam : Hummatu, Ummam, Ummata, Gujarati : Dhattura, Tamil : Matulam, Umathai, Umattai, Telugu : Duthooramu, Ummattha, Bengali : Dhattura.

Parts Used :

Seeds, Whole Plant.

Description

It is annual coarse herbs, minutely pubescent, growing upto 1.5 m high. Leaves 15-20 cm long, ovate, acute, entire or with few large teeth or lobes. Flowers solitary, calyx 7.5 cm long, tubular, corolla about twice as long as the calyx, tubular, widend at the mouth, purple or white, often double. Capsules sub globose, nodding, covered all over with numerous, straight, sharp prickles. Seeds are compressed, rugose, brown.

Phytoconstituents


The main constituents of the plant are a large number of tropane alkaloids including hyoscyamine, hyoscine, littorine, acetoxytropine, valtropine, fastusine, fastusinine, a number of withanolides and various esters of tropine and pseudotropine. Seeds contains β-sitosterol, triterpene, Scopolamine, dhaturine, daturadiol, daturanolone, daturalone, factusine, hyoscyamine. Leaves also contains atropine, niacin, vitamin C. Root contains hyosine, atropine, apophyoscine, norhyoscine, meteloidine, noratropine, tropine, pseudotropine.

Medicinal Uses

  • It is used for skin diseases, ulcer, scabies, pruritus and fever. 
  • The plant as a whole has narcotic, anodyne and antispasmodic properties. 
  •  Leaves are used as a local application for rheumatic swellings of the joints, lumbago, sciatica, neuralgia, painful tumours and glandular inflammations, such as mumps; used externally for earache and smoked to relieve spasmodic asthma. 
  • Seeds are used externally for piles. Seeds, leaves and roots are used in insanity, fever with catarrh, diarrhoea, skin diseases and cerebral complications. 





“At the time of the White Dawn;
At the time of the White Dawn,
I arose and went away.
At Blue Nightfall I went away.
I ate the thornapple leaves
And the leaves made me dizzy.
I drank thornapple flowers
And the drink made me stagger…”

~Original Author Unkown
So begins the Pima “Datura Song” first translated in 1901 from a song-poem ritually performed by Tohono O’odham shamans of south-central Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico. This song was sung to bring success with a hunt, but also in cases of sickness where the characteristic symptoms were vomiting and dizziness (Frank Russell, The Pima Indians, 1908). It illustrates the great significance and nature of datura plants in the oral and sacred traditions of many native cultures.

Comments

healthkingvnb.blogspot.com

Divya Godhan Ark Benefits

tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) Benefits and Uses

Spirulina: Benefits and Uses

KAPALBHATI PRANAYAM

healthkingvnb.blogspot.com

IMMUNITY BOOSTERS / The power house of immunity / Giloy

Neem: Azadirachta indica

BAY LEAF