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Anisodus tanguticus
Anisodus tanguticus, known as Zang Qie, is a perennial herb in the nightshade family that grows wild on grassy, sunny slopes of the Tibetan Plateau at high altitude. It is grown mainly as a source of tropane alkaloids for traditional Chinese medicine, and wild populations are declining because the roots are harvested.
Anisodus tanguticus (ཐང་ཕྲོམ་ནག་པོ། in Tibetan) is a species of flowering plant belonging to tribe Hyoscyameae of subfamily Solanoideae of the nightshade family Solanaceae. It is thus closely related to Henbane and Deadly Nightshade. Solanaceae is a plant family which includes many important agricultural plants such as the potato and the tomato. It is mostly found growing in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. A. tanguticus is collected and used mostly for its medicinal effects caused by the plant's biologically active nicotine and tropane alkaloids. It has a significant impact in China as one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Anisodus tanguticus is found growing (on grassy sunny slopes) principally on the Tibetan Plateau, its range extending from the Hengduan Mountains of Sichuan and Yunnan in the east, through Qinghai and Gansu to the northwest, Tibet in the west, and Nepal in the south. It is present from altitudes of 2,800 to 4,200 metres (9,200–13,800 ft). Populations of A. tanguticus in this region have decreased significantly due to extensive harvesting of the species for medicinal purposes, resulting (since the roots are the part harvested) in the removal of plants in their entirety.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Anisodus tanguticus 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.
