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Aconitum napellus
Also called Aconite, Venus' chariot, Garden Monkshood, Garden Wolfsbane, Turk's Cap, Bear's Foot, Blue Rocket
Monk's-hood is a highly toxic herbaceous perennial from western and central Europe, grown for its tall spikes of dark blue-purple helmet-shaped flowers in mid-autumn. Grow it in cool, moist, fertile soil in partial shade, and handle it only with gloves.
Aconitum napellus, monkshood, aconite, Venus' chariot or wolfsbane, is a species of highly toxic flowering plants in the genus Aconitum of the family Ranunculaceae, native and endemic to western and central Europe. A perennial plant, it is herbaceous and grows to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) tall, with hairless stems and leaves. The leaves are rounded, 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in) diameter, palmately divided into five to seven deeply lobed segments. The flowers are dark purple to bluish-purple, narrow oblong helmet-shaped, 1–2 cm (0.39–0.79 in) tall. Plants native to Asia and North America formerly listed as A. napellus are now regarded as separate species. The plant is extremely poisonous in both ingestion and body contact. It is the most poisonous plant in all of Europe.
Aconitum napellus is grown in gardens in temperate zones for its spiky inflorescences that are showy in mid-autumn, and its attractive foliage. There are white and rose colored forms in cultivation too.
The cultivar 'Spark's Variety' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Marked symptoms may appear almost immediately, usually not later than one hour, and "with large doses, death is almost instantaneous". Death usually occurs within two to six hours in fatal poisoning (20 to 40 mL of tincture may prove fatal). The initial signs are gastrointestinal including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. This is followed by a sensation of burning, tingling, and numbness in the mouth and face, and of burning in the abdomen. In severe poisonings pronounced motor weakness occurs and cutaneous sensations of tingling and numbness spread to the limbs. Cardiovascular features include hypotension, sinus bradycardia, and ventricular arrhythmias. Other features may include sweating, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, headache, and confusion. The main causes of death are ventricular arrhythmias and asystole, paralysis of the heart or of the respiratory center. The only post-mortem signs are those of asphyxia.
Treatment of poisoning is mainly supportive. All patients require close monitoring of blood pressure and cardiac rhythm.
Aconitum napellus is grown in gardens for its attractive spike-like inflorescences and showy blue flowers. It is a cut flower crop used for fresh cutting material and sometimes used as dried material. The species has a low natural propagation rate under cultivation and is propagated by seed or by removing offsets that are generated each year from the rootstocks. The use of micropropagation protocols has been studied. This species has been crossed with other Aconitums to produce attractive hybrids for garden use, including Aconitum × cammarum.
Carmichael's monkshood · Korean Monk’shood · Indian aconite · Aconitum henryi · Monkshood
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Aconitum napellus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
