Atropa belladonna, commonly known as belladonna or deadly nightshade, is a toxic perennial herbaceous plant in the nightshade family Solanaceae, which also includes tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant (aubergine). (wikipedia.org)
Tropane alkaloids are of common occurrence not only in the Old World tribes Hyoscyameae (to which the genus Atropa belongs) and Mandragoreae, but also in the New World tribe Datureae - all of which belong to the subfamily Solanoideae of the plant family Solanaceae. (wikipedia.org)
Atropa belladonna has unpredictable effects. (wikipedia.org)
Atropa belladonna has a long history of use as a medicine, cosmetic, and poison. (wikipedia.org)
Known originally under various folk names (such as "deadly nightshade" in English), the plant was named Atropa belladonna by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) when he devised his classification system. (wikipedia.org)
citation needed] The use of deadly nightshades as a poison was known in ancient Rome, as attested by the rumour that the Roman empress Livia Drusilla used the juice of Atropa belladonna berries to murder her husband, the emperor Augustus. (wikipedia.org)
The modern pharmacological study of Atropa belladonna extracts was begun by the German chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge (1795-1867). (wikipedia.org)
Atropa belladonna is a branching herbaceous perennial rhizomatous hemicryptophyte, often growing as a subshrub from a fleshy rootstock. (wikipedia.org)
Atropa belladonna is native to temperate southern, Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran and the Caucasus, but has been cultivated and introduced outside its native range. (wikipedia.org)
It is a secondary metabolite found in certain plants of the Solanaceae family, including henbane ( Hyoscyamus niger ), mandrake ( Mandragora officinarum ), jimsonweed ( Datura stramonium ), tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum ) and deadly nightshade ( Atropa belladonna ). (curecrowd.com)
Atropine4
These toxins include atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine, which cause delirium and hallucinations, and are also used as pharmaceutical anticholinergics. (wikipedia.org)
The antidote for belladonna poisoning is physostigmine or pilocarpine, the same as for atropine. (wikipedia.org)
It is the levorotary isomer of atropine (third of the three major nightshade alkaloids) and thus sometimes known as levo-atropine. (curecrowd.com)
The closely related drugs atropine and scopolamine and other members of the anticholinergic drug group like cyclobenzaprine , trihexyphenidyl , and orphenadrine are also used for this purpose. (curecrowd.com)
Hyoscyamine should not be confused with hyoscine, an older alternate name for the related nightshade-derived anticholinergic scopolamine . (curecrowd.com)
Nightshade1
A. belladonna is sometimes confused with the much less poisonous black nightshade, Solanum nigrum, belonging to a different genus within Solanaceae. (wikipedia.org)
Berries3
The foliage and berries are extremely toxic when ingested, containing tropane alkaloids. (wikipedia.org)
Linnaeus chose the species name belladonna ("beautiful woman" in Italian) in reference to the cosmetic use of the plant during the Renaissance, when women used the juice of the berries in eyedrops intended to dilate the pupils and make the eyes appear more seductive. (wikipedia.org)
The berries are sweet and are consumed by animals that disperse the seeds in their droppings, even though they contain toxic alkaloids (see Toxicity). (wikipedia.org)