Economic Botany- Morphology of Rauwolfia serpentina plant
Botanical Name: Rauwolfia
serpentina
Family: Apocynaceae the Dobgane
family
Other names: Snake root plant,
serpentine root plant, devil pepper, sarpagandha etc
Morphology of plant:
It is an erect woody shrub attaining.
ROOTS:
Roots of Sarpagandha are tuberous
in nature consisting of irregularly shaped nodules and pale brown bark attached
to it. Its greyish yellow externally and pale yellow internally. Acrid in odour
when fresh and odourless when dried. Roots are taproot and develop several
small fibrous side roots.
LEAVES:
Leaves of R. serpentina are
arranged in whorls of 3-4 at each node, simple, elliptical, lanceolate,
acuminate, broad, dark green, shiny,
thereby tapering into a petiole.
FLOWERS:
Inflorescence is in the form of umbelliferous
cyme with bisexual and hermaphrodite flowers depicting white or pinkish colour. It also consists of deep red peduncle
long which is actinomorphic in nature with a short pedicel, bracteate having
bright scarlet with segments appearing in clusters
FRUIT:
Fruit usually in pair united for
half of their length, purple-black and glossy when ripe.
Medicinal Properties:
Stem and leaves have low alkaloid
content. Alkaloids primarily bound to the bark of roots. The fibrous roots are rich in active constituent than taproot. Reserpine and Ajmaline group of
alkaloids are more common,
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