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Atropa baetica
Atropa baetica, commonly known as the Andalusian belladonna, is one of Europe's rarest wildflowers. A close relative of the infamous deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), its specific name derives from that of the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, while its common name refers to the Spanish region of Andalucía – both designating the area in the south of Spain where it is most frequently encountered. It is an attractive perennial plant with a herbaceous habit, bearing infundibuliform (i.e. funnel-shaped), yellow or greenish flowers and shiny, black berries. Like the other three (generally accepted) species of Atropa, it is an extremely poisonous plant, containing a variety of tropane alkaloids with anticholinergic, deliriant, antispasmodic and mydriatic properties.
No fewer than 15 tropane alkaloids have been isolated from Atropa baetica, of which the most abundant are atropine and scopolamine – alkaloids of frequent occurrence in toxic Solanaceous plants (notably in tribes Hyoscyameae and Datureae)) with a history of employment as analgesics, anaesthetics and hallucinogens in traditional medicine.
Atropa baetica is a calcicole species with a distribution centred upon the limestone mountains of the South and Southeast of the Iberian Peninsula and Northwest Africa. It has been found in the Spanish provinces of Cádiz (province), Province of Málaga, province of Granada, Province of Almería Province of Jaén (Spain), Province of Cuenca and Province of Guadalajara and, more recently, in those of Region of Murcia and Catalonia. It is also found in the Moroccan region of Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima and in northern Algeria.
Like its better-known relative Atropa belladonna, A. baetica is a medicinal plant that has, in the past, been gathered in the wild as a source of valuable tropane alkaloids – most notably Atropine and Scopolamine (=Hyoscine). The harvesting of the roots and rhizomes has involved the destruction of mature plants, further endangering a species likely never to have been common to start with and now extremely rare. As a result, the plant can now no longer be found in certain localities in which it used to grow e.g. its type locality (biology): the wooded valley of Barrancon in the Sierra de Maria-Los Velez Natural Park, Province of Almeria In addition to its former use in modern medicine as a source of alkaloidal drugs (discontinued, due to conservation concerns over the rarity of the species), Atropa baetica has interesting uses in the traditional medicine of Morocco.
Indian Belladonna · Deadly Nightshade · Atropa indobelladonna · Hyrcanian Belladonna · Belladonna
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Atropa baetica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
